One Thousand Cranes
by Quis Custodiet
Summary: When Keitaro and Motoko lose their duel with Tsuruko, they are forced into a sham marriage that Keitaro wants to end. Unfortunately Keitaro didn't realize that for Motoko there was only one way out.
1. Chapter 1

Keitaro Urashima was in a panic. This in itself was nothing exceptional, after all – Keitaro Urashima was nearly _always_ in a panic. One might even say that "panic" was pretty much Keitaro's default state of being, or at least his one noticeable character trait, even to the point where people who barely knew him referred to him in casual conversation as "That really nervous guy with the glasses". No, what made this particular case of panic exceptional was that not only was it shared by the person in front of him, but that the person in front of him was the one person he was certain would _never_ panic. Her name was Tsuruko Aoyama and her terrified words were practically spitting in Keitaro's face.

"Urashima-san!" the beautiful swordswoman screamed as she held the panicking young man by the collar, "What exactly happened between Motoko-han and Narusegawa?"

Keitaro's mind reeled – he was still confused, caught up almost in a state of dreaming with the events that had transpired in the last few hours. He had dueled alongside Motoko against Tsuruko and had lost – _badly_. As a result the pair had been forced into a sham marriage that Keitaro had initially assumed was just a bad joke on behalf of Tsurukuo and almost certainly illegal. After all, this was modern day Japan – things like this just didn't happen. Why was everyone taking this so seriously? Especially Narusegawa ….

Keitaro gulped and looked deep into Tsuruko's eyes. The fear there was real. He tried to calm down and recall the events that had just transpired.

"It was right after the ceremony at the shrine. We were all together…"

LHLHLHLHLHLH

Naru Narusegawa stomped across the neatly pedicured lawn outside of the Aoyama family shrine. The anger seething off her body was palpable and if Keitaro hadn't known better he would have assumed the smaller woman was leaving visible craters as she smashed her way towards him.

"You idiot!" Naru screamed at Keitaro, "How could you possibly go through with this? What were you thinking!"

These were both reasonable questions and Keitaro didn't really have the presence of mind to answer them, for as concerned as he was about the fact that the woman he loved probably hated him right now, he was just as concerned about the young girl next to him who had just spent the last thirty minutes staring off into space.

"Naru, please! Motoko-chan is shock right now. We have to figure out some way to help her!" pleaded Keitaro.

The former "samurai girl" and renown kendoka, Motoko Aoyama hadn't really taken the news that she was now "Motoko Urashima" all that well. In fact, it seemed that her sanity had pretty much all but rejected the idea and in the process decided to shut down all higher forms of thought, expressions of emotion and voluntary muscle and nervous responses. For the better part of the last hour she had done nothing except stare listlessly off into the distance while Keitaro futilely attempted to get some sort of response out of her.

Naru was inches from Keitaro's face at this point. Her normally flawless white skin was ruddy with stress and anger and she bellowed, "Help her?! Are you serious?! THAT'S WHAT CAUSED THIS PROBLEM YOU IDIOT!"

Keitaro flinched at this. Naru was right – his incessant compulsion to help first and think later was the primary factor behind why he had just married a minor who could barely tolerate him while the woman he loved was now screaming in his face. His Aunt Haruka was always warning him about the risks of being a soft hearted idiot and Keitaro ruefully lamented that his aunt had never been so absolutely right. This situation was a complete mess and every time he stepped in to make it "better" it had steadily gotten worse. He needed to calm down and he needed Naru to calm down as well, if they could all just put their heads together then they might be able to figure this out.

"Naru," whined Keitaro, "It's not like this marriage is legal. Even if it is, we can just get it annulled." Keitaro took one long look at the girl sitting next to him and sighed, "And shouldn't we be more worried about Motoko-chan? She's just been kicked out of her family!"

Keitaro's words, rather than placating Narusegawa, seemed to only inflame her anger. She moved her attention from Keitaro and instead stood directly in front of the immobile Motoko, lowering her face so that her eyes met the younger girls dead on.

"And you! What do you have to say for yourself? This all started because you had to go and lie to your sister!" The anger in Naru's voice was tinged with acid. It was clear that she was looking for some sort of apology from the other girl but instead was just met with the same placid and uncaring face that Motoko had been wearing ever since she was pronounced to be Keitaro's wife.

"Well? Are you going to answer me?" growled Naru as she shook the Motoko by the shoulders.

Keitaro was getting worried and tried to intercede. "Naru, don't you think that's…"

"SHUT UP!" screamed Naru as she raised her fist over her head. Keitaro flinched and closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable "Naru-punch" that surprisingly never came. Instead he heard the sound of hand meeting face as Naru's temper finally got the better of her and she slapped Motoko clean across the side of her mouth.

"Say something Aoyama!" she screamed at the reeling swordswoman.

It seemed that the physical confrontation finally knocked something loose inside Motoko as she reached her hand up to her face and then turned her eyes back to Naru. Her next words were quiet, but clear, not quite a whisper.

"It's Urashima now, Narusegawa."

Keitaro could practically hear the springs inside Naru's head snap and in a panic he launched himself in between the two women before the situation could escalate any further. It took a great deal of effort, but he was eventually able to separate them to what he considered a "safe" distance, or at least one where they would not be able to immediately start killing each other.

"Motoko-chan, don't worry. We can get the marriage annulled," he said over his shoulder as he pushed Naru a bit further away, leaving one hand up in the air in an attempt to ward her off from going at the obviously still shocked Motoko.

Motoko stood up and took a long look at her two friends. She knew that they loved each other and in part that was why the situation was so painful for everyone involved. She didn't feel any hatred at Narusegawa for striking her, after all – she was right. It was her lies and foolishness that had lead them all to this point. Keitaro was just _being Keitaro_. He would always help any of the girls at the Hinata-sou and Motoko had simply taken advantage of this. This too hurt Motoko, because if she was truthful to herself, there was a small, but firm part of her that had feelings for the kind hearted manager. She was ashamed to consider how she had abused his gentle nature for her own selfish whims, which made her decision on what to do next somewhat easier than it might have been.

"There's no need," Motoko pronounced calmly.

Both Keitaro and Naru paused at this. A look of concern passed across Naru's face, but it was quickly replaced by one of anger.

"What do you mean by that Motoko? Are you planning to stay married to my boyf… I mean, Keitaro?" asked Naru. She had recovered slightly from her almost accidental slip-up in regards to her feelings about Keitaro, but the tone of her voice betrayed her somewhat.

Motoko sighed and took one last look at her friends. This was going to be hard, but it was the only option left to her. After all, Tsuruko had taken her weapons, so even a samurai's death was beyond her reach. Still, it was better than being in a loveless marriage, or even the alternative, being cast out and alone with no family and no honor.

"Don't worry. I will go and visit my father now," she said in a solemn voice.

LHLHLHLHLHLH

"And then she said, 'I will go and visit my father now' and left," said Keitaro as he finished relating the previous events to Tsuruko.

" _Otosan_ …" mumbled Tsuruko as she released her grip on Keitaro.

Keitaro stepped back and smoothed out his clothes. Tsuruko's behaviour was bothering him, after all, wasn't _she_ the one who had set up the ridiculous rules for this duel in the first place? If she was really upset at how Motoko was taking this, couldn't she just call it off? Keitaro was actually a hairs breadth away from giving the elder Aoyama sister a piece of his mind when unexpectedly she grabbed his arm and started pulling him away from the shine.

"Wait!" Keitaro objected. His leg was injured and he was barely able to hobble along at the brisk space Tsuruko was demanding. "Where are we going?"

Tsuruko tightened her grip on Keitaro's wrist and continued pulling him.

"Our father is _dead_ Urashima-san. Do you understand? Our father is dead!"

To his credit, Keitaro didn't falter under the horrible implications of that statement. Instead he gritted his teeth and set his jaw against the pain in his leg as he increased the speed at which he was moving with Tsuruko. It was perhaps one of his finer attributes – when a friend was in danger, there was very little Keitaro Urashima wouldn't do to help them.

"Why would she do this Tsuruko-san? This is crazy!" said Keitaro as the two of them made their way through a copse of trees towards the back of the family compound.

"It's because she doesn't want to stand between you and Narusegawa-san," replied Tsuruko. The moon had finally risen in the sky and the rocky landscape of the mountainous compound was list in a pale light.

Keitaro angrily pulled his arm away from Tsuruko and glared at her. He had reached his limit over the absurdity of this sham marriage.

"That's just absurd! This isn't a real marriage and even if it was, we'll just get it annulled! This is not the Edo period Tsuruko-san!" he spat at her.

Tsuruko grabbed him by the shirt again and pulled him close to her.

"To the Aoyama clan it might as well be!" she snarled at Keitaro as her otherwise delicate features contorted in anger. It took a great deal of effort, but the kendoka managed to calm herself enough to continue in a firm, but still urgent voice.

"Urashima-san, you need to understand that Motoko-han was going to be disowned because she lied to get out of her family obligation. I interceded on her behalf in order to prevent this and presented her with two options that would satisfy the clan - either best me in an honor duel, or to make the lie into the truth."

Tsuruko paused for a moment, letting the words sink into Keitaro's otherwise dense skull.

"If you were to annul your marriage what do you think would happen to Motoko-han? Do you think the clan would welcome her back with open arms? She can _never_ be an Aoyama again, and if she can't be an Urashima either, then what does that leave her?"

"B-b-but…" Keitaro started to stammer. His mind was racing, trying to comprehend everything that Tsuruko was telling him. It sounded like madness to him, to disown their own family member over something so trivial. Keitaro himself was such a mess and a failure that he was certain that if the Urashima's had similar practices he would have been left in a cardboard box by the side of the road sometime before he could crawl.

"Urashima! There's no time!" Tsuruko barked as she continued racing up the hill with Keitaro following as close as his injured leg would allow.

"Look! There, on the hill!" she pointed with a shaking arm.

Keitaro looked up as he continued to race forward up the path. On the summit of the hill overlooking the back of the Aoyama estate was a ghost gowned in pure white, or as Keitaro knew, a young bride in her wedding kimono.

"Motoko!" both of them shouted out as they continued in their desperate race to prevent a certain tragedy.

The ghost paused for a moment, her foot precariously close to the edge of a several hundred foot drop down the mountain side. Keitaro was certain he saw her entire body shake and convulse and he felt his heart leap into his chest in fear. She was so close, so terribly close to death and while he didn't know what he could do to stop it, he had to try something!

"Motoko please don't do this!" he screamed at her, he was closer now, so close he could almost grab her.

The voice that came back was iron cold and raspy but with a tint of sorrow so deep that Keitaro could barely place it as Motoko's own.

"Urashima… I'm sorry."

And with that Motoko Urashima, formerly Motoko Aoyama, fell forward and into the darkness alone.

Or at least, that's what she had planned.

Instead, what actually happened is a certain inept and clumsy manager lodged his foot on a obvious tree root and tumbled right off the cliff after her leaving a stunned Tsuruko to scream out in agony and grief.

LHLHLHLHLHLH

Keitaro Urashima was a man who knew pain in all of its delicious flavors and varieties – emotional, physical, even meta-physical, however he wasn't prepared for the agony that greeted him as his consciousness slowly rose from the darkness that had been harboring it for the last two weeks.

At first he had actually tried to scream, but then found out that curiously he couldn't make a noise above a very dry and painful croak. His throat actually felt like it was on fire and he tried to move his hand up to massage it but quickly realized that variety of tubes and gauze wrappings were in the way.

" _Where the hell am I?_ " he thought to himself as he tried to focus his eyes to no avail. He wasn't sure if it was because of the ringing pain in his head or his astigmatism, but he could barely make out the fact that he appeared to be in a hospital bed of some sorts. Hell, there was a television playing in the back ground somewhere and he couldn't make out the sound over the ringing in his ears. Whatever had happened to him was major, way more than anything he'd suffered in the past.

" _What_ _ **did**_ _happen to me_?"

He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. He remembered chasing Tsuruko through the back lot of the Aoyama compound. He remembered seeing Motoko, forlorn and deathly, teetering on the precipice of the summit. He remembered reaching for her… and then nothing. Try as he might, he couldn't remember anything that happened after the moment he began to fall.

"Motoko!" he uttered aloud with panic. He had almost forgotten about her! Was she okay as well? Did she die? The later thought gnawed at him. Keitaro was fairly certain that he might actually be indestructible, but Motoko on the other hand…

Resolving to do something, Keitaro pulled at the IV drips in his arms and tried to lower the safety bar on his bed so he could get out. However, all this managed to do was set off the alarms attached to the equipment. While he was still feebly struggling with the bed, a pair of nurses hastily entered the room.

"Sir!" one of them exclaimed as she rushed to his side, "Please sit back sir! You've been injured."

Keitaro shook his head and tried to form words with his dry lips, "Motoko… where?" was all he was able to get out.

The other nurse, an older and merrily plump woman took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze as she spoke.

"Your wife is fine sir. She's fine."

Keitaro puzzled for a moment until he remembered that yes, Motoko and him were _technically_ married. He'd correct this misconception on their part later, but for now he was just happy to hear she was alive. He visibly relaxed and the nurses took this as a sign to help ease him back into the bed.

"Thirsty," Keitaro croaked as one of the nurses put a pillow under his head.

"I'll get you something to drink right away," said the younger nurse as she left the room.

The older nurse started reattaching the various tubes to Keitaro, making idle talk while she went about her work.

"You're quite a brave one aren't you?" she said cheerily, "Imagine that – saving your brides life on your wedding night. That'll be a story to tell your children for sure."

Keitaro made a sickly smile at this. He wasn't quite so sure that Motoko was going to be having any children, let alone with him, or that this was a story he was going to be eager to talk about.

There was a slight bustle from outside the door and a voice that Keitaro was certain he recognized.

"He's awake!"

Someone was coming into the room, being pushed in a wheel chair. Keitaro blinked his eyes, trying to will them to come into focus.

"Ah, there she is!" said the older nurse as she turned to the door, "Come for your daily visit, have you?"

"Yes… I heard he's awake, is it true?"

The older nurse paused for a moment and then sighed. "I probably shouldn't do this since he just woke up and we need to get a doctor to examine him properly… but yes he's awake. Come now, I'll help you over to the bed."

Keitaro tried to move his head but found his strength lacking. Now that the panic over Motoko's fate had subsided, he found himself feeling every inch of damage on his body.

"Hello…" came a voice, soft as a whisper. Keitaro tried to gurgle out a response but his throat was still not cooperating. One of the nurses pushed a straw into Keitaro's mouth. He obliged with a long drink of cool water. It helped some.

"Hi there…" Keitaro tilted his head and looked down at the woman sitting next to his bed, confirming what he had suspected.

"Motoko-chan" he finished with a smile. He was genuinely happy to see her.

Her face was banged up, she had bruising, cuts, a black eye and a large bandage wrapped around her head that was causing her otherwise normally lustrous black hair to stick out at odd angles, but she was alive and Keitaro was so relieved that he felt his smile widen to a full out grin.

Keitaro gulped another sip of water and he idly wondered why he had never appreciated the simple act of drinking so much before. He felt Motoko take his hand in a gentle grip.

Clearing his throat some, he began to speak, "Motoko-chan… are you alright?" he asked.

There was a flash of concern on Motoko's face, something almost barely noticeable but she shook it off. She squeezed Keitaro's hand.

"I'm more worried about you," she said with uncharacteristic tenderness as she gazed at Keitaro's face.

Keitaro blinked. There was something about the way that Motoko was looking at him, almost as if she was studying his features for some reason. Out of all the girls at the Hinata-sou, he had never been particularly close to Motoko and despite their recent "forced intimacy" Keitaro was fairly certain they had never progressed to the stage where she was gazing fondly into his eyes.

"I'll be fine… you of all people should know how tough I am."

Keitaro smiled at the end of that sentence, and while it was a pretty corny sentiment he wasn't prepared for the reaction that Motoko had. She looked visibly uncomfortable and she averted her eyes.

"Ah… uh… yes," she offered lamely.

"What's wrong Motoko-chan?" asked Keitaro, his voice thick with concern.

Motoko took a deep breath and lowered her head. It was obvious that she was conflicted about something and Keitaro did his best to reassure her.

"It's okay Motoko-chan, you know you can tell me anything."

Motoko shuddered and Keitaro was certain he heard a deep sob. Slowly, she tilted her head up – her eyes were wet and shining as she looked up meekly at Keitaro.

"I… don't know…" she said, her voice barely a whisper.

" _You idiot, Keitaro!_ " he thought to now wasn't the best time for him to have pushed the issue, especially considering that Motoko's own feelings had been so tumultuous that she had felt compelled to end her own life. If he was honest with himself, he wasn't quite ready to deal with it either.

Feeling rather lost and more than a little useless about the entire situation Keitaro opted to firmly squeeze Motoko's hand in an effort to reassure her. Unfortunately this gesture seemed to have the opposite effect as Motoko began to softly cry and shake.

"I'm so sorry… Keitaro-san. Everyone says you saved my life, everyone tells me that we're married. I've sat here every day, staring at your face, but…"

Motoko was overcome by another heart wrenching sob.

"But I just can't remember it!" she cried in desperation.

Keitaro tried to move his mouth but found himself flummoxed by Motoko's behaviour. He was so put off by her uncharacteristic expression of raw emotion that he was just barely able to comprehend what it was that she was trying to tell him.

"M-M-Motoko!" he stammered as he flailed around searching for the right words to comfort the crying girl.

Motoko dropped Keitaro's hand and gripped herself tightly, almost as if she was trying to hold her own sadness in. One of the nurses rushed back into the room as her crying has reached a near hysterical state. Finally she wailed in a trembling voice, "How come I can't remember my own husband?"

LHLHLHLHLHLH

"I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner Urashima-san," said Tsuruko Aoyama. She was tired, it had been a very long two weeks and her normally stern voice was laced with melancholy and desperation.

She had arrived unfortunately too late to fill Keitaro in on Motoko's condition, but just in time to see a pair of nurses escorting her sister back to her private room in the adjoining suite. While Tsuruko was glad that her younger sister still lived, she wondered if the cost hadn't been too high.

Keitaro groaned from his bed, "I'm not ready for this Tsuruko-san," he complained. It was the truth – he had barely been up more than an hour and his head was still spinning.

Tsuruko sat down next to Keitaro and fixed her eyes on him. She knew that she needed to ask a lot of this young man, but she was both unsure as to how to do it, as well as if she even had the right to do so.

"You saw how she is, right? She can't remember a thing – and not just that night. It's like her memory has been completely erased."

"How did this happen?" asked Keitaro.

Tsuruko shrugged, "No one knows. It could be stress over the… " she paused for a moment, then pressed onward, "Let's not mince words here. Motoko-han tried to kill herself. The doctors don't know this, so they think it's because of a blow she took to the head on the way down."

Keitaro pondered this for a moment, "What do you think Tsuruko-san?"

"I think… my sister would never try to do something like that if she was in her right mind. I think I owe you a great debt Urashima-san. You have saved her – twice now."

Tsuruko hung her head. Although her sister had instigated the strange series of events that had led them to this current situation she knew that her own efforts in attempting to assist Motoko had only made matters worse. It was only by the grace of the severely injured young man before her that Motoko even lived and she was about to ask him to take on a terrible burden.

"Urashima-san, there is another thing…"

Keitaro didn't like the sound of Tsuruko's tone. Something about it nagged at his guts. It was the similar feeling he got when he knew he was going to do poorly on a test for lack of studying – just waiting for the inevitable pain.

"Motoko-han might eventually regain her memory…"

Keitaro interjected, "But?"

Tsuruko sighed. "She will probably never regain the ability to walk."

LHLHLHLHLHLH

Authors Note:

Well now, so _that_ happened. This is my own personal take on several "What if Keitaro and Motoko didn't beat Tsuruko" scenarios that I've seen posted here. I'm trying to do a couple of things, basically – not write Naru completely out of the story (and not bash her either) and not make it completely improbable that Keitaro and Motoko might end up together out of more than just a sense of obligation. We'll see how successful I am with this.

I have a few stories on the go right now that I want to work on, but if this one gets a favourable response I will probably come back to it sooner rather than later.

Edit: I have slightly corrected some issues with the story, mostly spelling mistakes that the checker didn't catch and a few grammar issues. If you guys catch them, please feel free to send me a note to let me know!


	2. Chapter 2

The girl in the hospital bed dropped the novel she had been reading into her lap and looked up at the ceiling. She would rather it was the sky, but unfortunately going outside was a laborious process that involved a small detachment of nurses at various steps along the way. Two to three to get her from the bed safely to the chair, one to get her outside, another one to sit with her since she was currently under constant observations and of course, god forbid she had to go to the toilet. It just wasn't worth the hassle of having to deal with so many people to do something so simple. She supposed she should be upset about this, but strangely she found herself more accepting than anything else. After all, due to her amnesia, this was the only life she knew.

" _Motoko Urashima, age: seventeen. Height: 175 centimetres, weight: I'm not telling. Current status: Married, uneducated, unemployed, amnesiac, paraplegic high school student."_

Motoko wrinkled her nose and then revised her assessment with the conclusive results of a recent self-examination.

" _And virgin. I couldn't even make it to my wedding night before horribly mutilating myself."_

It was a strange thing not knowing what type of person you were. According to the woman that claimed to be her sister, Motoko was actually an accomplished athlete and championship kendoka. The woman, Tsuruko, had shown Motoko photos of herself at competitions and holding trophies and generally looking like a lanky, mannish badass who seemed to enjoy swinging around oversized sticks (she had to be corrected by Tsuruko to call them _boken_ ). Motoko had since concluded that this was probably why everyone looked at her the way she might imagine you'd look at a puppy that just got run over by a car.

" _Oh that poor girl, she'll never swing sticks around ever again!"_

Motoko wondered what merit her former self saw in the ancient art of stick fighting. Obviously this had been important to her as the oversized wooden swords were present in practically every photo of her that existed, or at least that she'd been shown. From this, the image that she had formed of herself was that of a young woman who liked to hang out exclusively with other women and was more than a little butch. Maybe even in _that way_. To be truthful, she _had_ wondered if she was a lesbian, or at least, formerly a lesbian until her so-called-sister had brought over a stack of what were purportedly Motoko's own books for her to read. That's when she got her second surprise about herself: She liked smut.

She picked up the paperback that was in her lap and flipped it over to admire the tawdry cover art. It was one of many romance light novels that Tsuruko had brought for her to read. From the dog eared pages and bent spines, Motoko could tell that she (or someone!) had read these novels many times in the past and they were likely favorites. When she was still in her "highly suspicious" phase right after the accident, Motoko had actually checked the signature inside the cover of each novel, "Aoyama Motoko" with her own sample of handwriting to see if they matched. She wanted to make sure that not only was she not being tricked, but that this Tsuruko character wasn't trying to reprogram her to be heterosexual. Of course, after reading a couple of novels Motoko _was_ able to settle the matter of which team she played for by simple biological response. This of course, just led her to another question, " _Do I masturbate?"_

For a young girl of the age of seventeen, not knowing if you were a smut reading chronic masturbator was a pretty big deal and hence something worth investigating, so she did and the results were filed away in a mental report entitled, "Things I Will Never Admit to and Never Happened."

All things considered, she was lucky to have any feeling below the waist at all. According to her doctors, she had suffered only a partial injury to her spinal cord and in the anterior portion as well which allowed her to retain some sensations and control in her lower extremities. The doctors had said that this state might improve, perhaps even dramatically, over the next couple of months as the "spinal shock", or inflammation around the damage, started to subside. It was a small hope, but perhaps in the immediate future, not only would she be able to keep from soiling herself, she might even be able to lurch around like a zombie.

" _Just think of all the fun I'll get to have with the man in the next room that I don't even know!"_

Motoko fired up the "inner typewriter" in her mind and began to construct a scenario.

 _Motoko Urashima lurched forward across the bedroom with a monstrous gait, swinging her hips in a lurid fashion. "Oh, Keitaro-donno, how long have I waited to consummate our love!" she said, doing her best impression of an overly erotic yakuza. Keitaro could barely contain himself as his gazed shifted from Motoko's overly ripe chest, across her hard, manly abdomen and down to her revealing and sexy diaper. His mind reeled at the mysterious delights contained within its bio-degradable and environmentally friendly confines. Tonight, he was the luckiest man alive._

Motoko paused her inner monologue, suddenly overcome not only with the depths of her own negativity and poor self-image, but also at how easily she was able to construct such a passage out of thin air.

" _Maybe… I'm a writer?"_

Unfortunately for Motoko, this revelation would have to wait as a familiar visitor chose that moment to arrive at her door.

"Good morning _imouto-tan_ ," smiled Tsuruko as she entered the room. She was carrying a large shopping bag.

"Tan? Dearest Onee-sama, what am I? Four?" replied Motoko as she placed the novel she had been reading aside.

Tsuruko gave her sister a cheeky grin. From their interactions over the last several days, Motoko was starting to consider it something of a Tsuruko "trademark". At least it was better than the forlorn and sad looks she had been sporting during the first few days after the "accident".

"Sometimes I wonder… here, these are for you." Tsuruko threw the bag she was carrying into Motoko's lap and then took a seat next to the bed.

"And these are…?" Motoko pulled the sides of the paper bag wide and looked inside to reveal a small assortment of clothing items and boxes with labels she didn't recognize. Picking up a smaller one she started to examine the package for a moment before daintily put back into the bag.

"Just things I thought you should have, especially now that your husband is awake…" replied her sister. Motoko might not have had her memory back, but she could tell there was something unusual about the way Tsuruko was speaking to her.

"These aren't mine, are they?" asked Motoko in a voice that was more statement than question.

"Well, I wasn't about to travel all the way back to Hina City to raid your closet and besides, everything at the family house is years old." Tsuruko smiled at Motoko, it was a wide and dangerous smile that stated unequivocally "You will accept this as fact or you will face the consequences." Motoko wasn't quite sure _how_ she knew this, but she suspected the answer might lie with a history of childhood bullying at the hands of the elder Aoyama. She (wisely) let the matter pass.

"So, about Keitaro-san…" Motoko ventured.

"Still worried about yesterday?" her sister asked.

Motoko winced. Her hysterical breakdown at her "husbands" bedside wasn't one of her finer moments. It had taken two nurses and a cocktail of tranquilizers to return her to some semblance of normalcy afterwards and even now she found herself dreading the prospect of seeing the man again. Despite what everyone was telling her, she couldn't quite bring herself to believe in the events surrounding her supposed accident, or Keitaro's miraculous rescue. Obviously he was injured, severely so, and yes the hospital staff that she had talked to said that Keitaro was cradling Motoko in his arms when they were found and while all of this sounded very romantic to her nurses, it seemed strangely _off_ to Motoko. Even her sisters retelling of how Keitaro leapt after her in a panic seemed somewhat false to her. She didn't know why, but she just could not shake the feeling that something about the situation was wrong and this made her feel ashamed. She felt it would be "dishonourable" for her to call into question the act of bravery on the part of a man that was not only considered a hero by everyone around her, but evidently was also her lover and devoted husband and while this may had stilled her tongue and prevented her from asking questions out loud, it did little to calm the nervousness in her heart.

With these thoughts in her mind Motoko sank deeper into her bed and held her face in her hands. Her response to Tsuruko was left unsaid, but the elder sister had some idea of the dark path's Motoko's mind was traveling down. She bit her lower lip and considered the best way forward.

"Keitaro-san is not upset at you," she spoke, hoping that the meaning behind those words would somehow get past Motoko's barrier of "forgotten" memories.

Motoko wiped an errant tear from her eye and looked at Tsuruko. At times like this she felt as if she was trying to tell her something _more_ than she was actually saying.

"He should be," Motoko replied with a sigh.

"I have not been an honourable wife. I should be at his side while he recovers, but what can I do for him?" She gestured at her legs and frowned, "And now he is married to a cripple. I am a burden."

Tsuruko didn't like the trembling tenor of Motoko's voice as she pronounced her unworthiness. The feelings of terror that still lingered over witnessing her sisters failed suicide attempt had left an indelible mark across her heart and such she considered everything Motoko said with a state of hyper vigilance.

"Motoko-chan, you disrespect your husband by making this decision for him. The Urashima's are an honourable family. I would not have made this match if I had thought Keitaro-san to be so faint hearted."

Motoko stared at her sister for a long moment, the wheels in her mind turning.

"Omiai! This was an omiai, wasn't it?" she finally asked, wondering if she had found the answer to one of the questions that had been haunting her.

Tsuruko looked away and then slowly nodded. "Does it matter?"

Motoko shook her head. "No, but… perhaps it makes it less terrible if the marriage was arranged."

Tsuruko reached out to Motoko and took her hand in hers. It was a somewhat uncharacteristic gesture on the elder sisters behalf, but not entirely unwelcome by either. "You and Keitaro-san were friends for years," she said.

Motoko recalled how the nurses had told her that as soon as Keitaro had become conscious he had called for her. She remembered the broad smile that he gave her when he had saw her face. Friendship certainly didn't seem out of the question.

"How did I feel about him?" she asked.

Tsuruko ponder how to respond to her inquisitive sister. She didn't know exactly how Motoko felt, in fact, she was certain Motoko hadn't really known how she had felt either. Ultimately she decided to venture a guess.

"You were always a very… unsociable young woman," she said.

Motoko's face fell a little. From the stories that her sister had told, she suspected this was the case, but to have it confirmed…

"But…" continued Tsuruko, "Keitaro-san was the only man that you ever let into your heart."

Tsuruko knew that this was, if not exactly the truth, not entirely a lie either. It would have to do.

"Only you can decide how much that means Motoko. Only you know the answer to this question."

Tsuruko had her own suspicions about Motoko's "true feelings" but she left the words hanging in the air and Motoko understood – if she wanted to know her heart, then she would have to remember her past. There really was no other answer.

"And Keitaro-san?" she asked in a small voice.

Tsuruko rolled her eyes and playfully chopped Motoko on the skull, eliciting a faux yelp of pain from the younger woman. "Hey! What was that for?" Motoko asked in a disgruntled tone.

"Baka!" joked Tsuruko, "He threw himself off a mountain for you!"

Motoko considered this for a moment and then gave a low, throaty chuckle. "Oh. There is that."

LHLHLHLHLHLH

"So, Keitaro, decided what you're going to do?"

Keitaro Urashima held the phone to his ear as his Aunt Haruka repeated the same question he had been asking himself since he woke up. He pinched the bridge of his nose, adjusting his glasses and then sighed audibly.

"Whatever's best for Motoko-chan," he declared.

"Keitaro, you don't have to do that. No one would hold it against you, this is Tsuruko's problem, not yours," came the reply.

Haruka liked Motoko, maybe even best out of all the girls at the Hinata-sou, but she loved her nephew more and she was angry at Tsuruko. Not just for the sham of a marriage she had forced on the two young people, but because in doing so she had nearly killed them both.

"Haruka, what do you think they will do to her? Do you honestly think they will take her back if I annul the marriage?" he asked.

"No Keitaro they won't. They'll probably just put her in a hospital someplace and leave her to rot."

Haruka's voice was bitter. She knew families like the Aoyama's. Even though the time of the samurai class had long since been over, there were a few things that they couldn't abide and it just so happened that divorced crippled women ranked fairly high on that list.

Keitaro's hand gripped harder around the phone. "How can I let that happen to her!" he barked. "This is Motoko, not some stranger!"

Haruka held the phone away from her ear as her nephew/cousin continued his rant. She loved the boy, but he was prone to emotional histrionics that could put an old woman to shame. Still, he had a point – Motoko wasn't some stranger that they could abandon and under "normal" circumstances they never would. She was convinced that the marriage of the two young people was mostly a joke on behalf of Tsuruko that had wildly spiralled out of control, but she could tell that Keitaro was taking it seriously – at least, the responsibility part of it. That was, she admitted, one of Keitaro's better points.

" _God knows he needs some good points,"_ she chuckled to herself.

"H-Haruka-san? Are you listening?"

Haruka took another long drag on her Marlboro and exhaled loudly. "Yes I am, but I just have one final thing to say Keitaro – If you want to play at being a man here, then are you going to stick it out to the end? Motoko isn't some puppy that you can return when she gets too hard to take care of."

"Puppy…" Keitaro spit out the word, somewhat offended by his Aunt's tone.

"I know that! I promised I would help her and I'm going to keep that promise!" he stated.

Haruka just shook her head. _"That boy and his promises."_

"How much money do we have in the inn's accounts right now?" he asked.

Haruka told him.

"That's all? Oh…" The dejection in Keitaro's voice was palatable.

"Hospitals aren't free Keitaro," she deadpanned.

"I know." There was silence as Keitaro considered his options.

"I'd like to bring Motoko-chan back to the inn. Being around a familiar place might help her get back her memory, but…"

"We have a lot of steps," stated Haruka, bluntly.

"And no money," added Keitaro.

Keitaro considered for a moment giving up his managers job at the Hinata. He could move Motoko and himself into a smaller, more modern apartment that was accessible for people who had wheel chairs. There would also be additional medical expenses, doctors' visits, and physical rehabilitation. All of which are very expensive. Maybe the Urashima's or the Aoyama's could help him find a full time job…

"I might have to drop out of Todai and get a job," he ventured.

Haruka took another long drag on her cigarette. The idea of Keitaro finally obtaining his dream of Tokyo University and then having to toss it aside so quickly made her physically sick. For the hundredth time she cursed Tsuruko.

"There's another option," Haruka stated.

"We have no money…" retorted Keitaro.

"Actually, the Hinata has no money Keitaro. You do."

"What?! Are you crazy? I barely have two 500 yen coins to rub together. You know I don't actually get paid very much…"

Haruka snorted. "I'm talking about your inheritance, baka."

"I thought the Hinata _was_ my inheritance," pondered Keitaro.

"Only part of it. The rest of it was supposed to go to you when you finally graduated University, or when you…"

Keitaro hopefully added, "Get married?"

"Bingo. See, you haven't even attended a single class yet and you're already smarter," joked Haruka.

"Will it be enough?" asked Keitaro.

"It should be. There won't be much left over and this is pretty much a one-time deal. Don't expect to come back to this well anytime in the future, but I can take care of things for you here. At least it will increase the value of the inn."

Keitaro understood. A lesser man probably would have been angry at being robbed of his inheritance in this way, but Keitaro instead found himself physically relax. He and Motoko would be able to stay around their friends. She would get better. He could go to Todai still and from there… well, who knew what the future held.

" _You can still fulfil your promise."_

Keitaro pushed the idea out of his head. Now wasn't the time for that.

"Thanks Haruka. Oh and um…" Keitaro struggled a bit. He was approaching what he considered the _real_ difficult part of the conversation.

"How much do you know about Motoko's accident?" he asked in a hushed tone.

"All of it. Tsuruko told me everything. We agreed to keep it between our families," Haruka replied.

"And the girls…" Keitaro was concerned about letting the other residents of Hinata-sou know too much about Motoko's state, or more aptly, what lead up to it. He couldn't see anything but trouble coming from that.

"Keitaro – I'm not going to say a damn word to them about this and I suggest that you don't either. I mean it Keitaro, if you're going to be a man about this then you need to smarten up and not let those girls badger this out of you."

Keitaro flinched at the rebuke from Haruka. She was right of course, too many times in the past had he lost his cool or panicked under questioning. It was a habit he was going to have to break himself of if he was going to protect Motoko.

"I know…." He began to speak, but halted as the sound of someone opening the door to his room caught his attention, "Hold on – someone's here."

It was Motoko.

"Excuse me Keitaro-san, am I intruding?" she asked in an uncertain voice.

Keitaro adjusted his glasses and looked over his new "wife". She looked better than she had yesterday – more put together, less bruises, hair nicely done. It was obvious that someone had helped her with her appearance as she was no longer wearing the hospital regulation night gown and instead sported a simple top and skirt combo in muted tones of blue. It took a moment for it to sink in, but eventually Keitaro understood that she had probably put some effort in to trying to make a good appearance for his sake, for the sake of her new "husband".

"You look very pretty Motoko-chan, I'm talking to my Aunt Haruka."

He smiled at her as nicely as he knew how, he didn't want to risk hurting her feelings by seeming insincere and while perhaps it was a bit overdone, it did get a decent response. Motoko wheeled herself a little further into the room and returned a bashful smile of her own.

"Keitaro? Is Motoko there? Let me talk to her," came Haruka's voice from the phone.

"Okay," he said into the phone, then turning to Motoko, "She'd like to talk to you, is that okay?"

Keitaro offered the phone to Motoko, who reached out her hand and accepted it. Bringing it up to her head she said, "Hello – Urashima Motoko speaking,"

There was a silence on the other end of the phone and Keitaro could only imagine what Haruka was thinking. Suddenly, it came back to life, but at a volume too low for Keitaro to understand.

"Ah, yes. Hello Keitaro's obasaan," said Motoko into the phone.

"What? No, I am not implying you are old. Sorry. Sorry."

Keitaro had to grin at that. _"I suppose now that Motoko is an Urashima as well, she'll be getting that treatment from Haruka."_

"Yes? Oh, thank you. Yes."

Keitaro wondered what they were talking about.

"That would be nice if it's not too much trouble. Thank you. Yes. I look forward to it as well. Do you want to speak to… oh? Okay. Good bye."

Motoko handed the phone back to Keitaro. He checked it once and then declared the line dead. Evidently Haruka was done with him for the day.

"So… what did Aunt Haruka want?" he asked.

Motoko awkwardly smoothed out her skirt and looked uncomfortably around the room. Then, without making eye-contact with Keitaro she began to speak.

"Ah… well, you see… it's what I came over here to talk to you about as well," she said.

Keitaro raised his eye. Whatever it was, it was making Motoko incredibly uncomfortable. She was almost blushing.

"Well, um… we are married and um… well usually when a couple is married, they share certain things and um… well you see"

Motoko was fidgeting with her hands in her lap and Keitaro could see her face getting redder by degrees as she continued to speak, but for the life of him he couldn't understand what has gotten her so embarrassed.

"So, it's like that," she finally finished up, "We should share a room."

Keitaro smiled, "Oh is that…."

" _Share a room? Here at the hospital…. Okay, calm down Keitaro. That's not that big of a deal."_

Keitaro gulped and tried to calm his nerves.

"Uh… heh yeah um that's right. Well I'm okay with it if you are," he said. The sweat forming on his forehead was clearly giving away his attempts to conceal his awkwardness with false bravado.

Motoko smiled, obviously relieved that the matter was settled. And why shouldn't it be, it's not like she was asking for them to share an actual bed or futon, just a hospital room.

Keitaro, almost fully recovered, finally asked Motoko what Haruka had wanted to talk to her about.

"Oh, that. Well like I just said, you know…" Motoko blushed furiously.

Keitaro nodded. Of course, it all made sense.

Keitaro stopped nodding. Actually, it made no sense at all. What was she trying to say? Keitaro returned to attempting to pay attention.

"...she did say that the managers room was larger after all and closer to the ground floor."

Keitaro's brain froze and his eyes bugged out of his head.

" _Motoko and me in the same room, but not here – there! Oh and in the same… b-b-b-b-ed!"_

Motoko paused awkwardly and looked up at Keitaro, "That's…. That's all right, isn't it?"

Unfortunately Keitaro's brain was still frozen somewhere along the lines of "same bed" and he just continued to stare at her with his mouth half open.

"Oh!" Motoko looked sheepish, "Sorry – of course it's fine, we're married after all."

Keitaro chose this moment to unfreeze and he nodded and chuckled at Motoko, thankful that she had somehow managed to unintentionally cover for his brain misfiring.

With that out of the way, the new couple let a long minute of silence pass between them.

" _I've never had this much trouble talking to Motoko, at least not in a long time now. I should be able to think of something…_ "

Keitaro cleared his throat and Motoko looked at him expectantly.

"So… um…" he began to fumble almost immediately, casting about for some sort of topic of discussion. Eventually he settled on a nice generic stand-by.

"How are you feeling?" he asked. Keitaro was disappointed in how lame he sounded considering everything that had transpired.

Motoko moved her lips as if she was about to speak, but then stopped. The room was quiet for another long minute.

"Keitaro-san," she said eventually, breaking the silence.

"Ahem… Yes?" said Keitaro.

"Are we in love?" she asked.

LHLHLHLHLHLH

Authors Note:

I got a pretty decent response for the last chapter so I decided to expedite this one. I'm fairly happy with the way this is shaping up so far, but as other people have noted in their reviews (which by the way, I read and consider, so thank you for writing them) the challenge here is how to keep Motoko "Motoko-like" without making her a Mary Sue due to her amnesia.

I've settled on a characterization that probably emphasizes more her sense of honor and family obligation (as befitting of someone from an old samurai class family) than her "man hating" and "kendo girl" traits, so we'll see how this works. One thing that is nice about her is that once you strip away her hostility towards Keitaro for being a pervert, she's actually incredibly shy and as we all know, secretly a romantic.

Which of course, will make it all that much more interesting when she finally gets her memory back.

Anyway, once again thank you for reading and please leave comments or favorite and follow the story. I will probably go off and bang out a chapter on another work next, but I'll come back to this one so long as people are still interested in it.


	3. Chapter 3

Motoko's face contorted in a mixture of concentration and agony. Sweat, the perspiration of her exertions, dampened her forehead, making her blunt black bangs stick to her brow. It was with no small effort and a high degree of pain that she focused once again on the strength in her abdominal muscles and slowly willed herself forward. For a moment, it was if nothing at all was going to happen, but then almost miraculously, one of her deadened legs moved forward.

" _Six inches. All that effort for six inches."_

Her hands gripped firmly on the rails that were supporting her weight, knuckles whitening at the exertion. Her doctors and the physical therapist that supervised her during these sessions were encouraging. They had said to her that the paralysis that she had suffered was not complete and there was some hope, albeit a small one, that with practice she might be able to walk again – even if it was with the assistance of a crutches or leg braces. Bolstered by this fact, she set her jaw and grit her teeth, bearing down again on already sore muscles. The technique that she was using to manipulate her legs relied on the strength in her stomach and hips and the stress of the unusual movements made her belly burn like fire.

" _Just… one… more… step…"_

A voice rung out from the sidelines of the large physical therapy room, "You can do it Motoko-chan!" It was her "husband". She refused to turn her head to look at him and instead focused deep within herself and willed the tortured muscle fibers in her gut to push one more time…

Nothing happened.

"That's good enough Urashima-san. There's no reason to overdo it," came the voice of her physical trainer – a large man wearing a dark blue polo shirt and a plastered on fake smile. Motoko despised him.

"No!" she barked. She almost raised one of her hands to ward him away, but then remembered she needed them to support her weight. She felt feeble and weak. She hated it.

"Let her do it," said Keitaro. Even though Motoko still wasn't looking, she could tell he was closer now. His tone sounded… soft, almost regretful, but also… expectant, like an unspoken challenge. One more time she bore the pain and pressed, there was agony for a long minute and then finally she achieved a single foot step. She had walked twelve steps today and her torso felt like it was going to split. It as a pathetic victory, but it was hers.

Judging by the tone in his voice, the trainer had evidently had enough "Come on; let's get you down to the mat. No arguing." Motoko relented. Begrudgingly she admitted to herself that it was a moot point – her body simply wouldn't cooperate any more.

She felt two pairs of hands easing her down to the ground. Her breathing was still laboured but once she was resting on her back she found the pain in her stomach more of a distraction. Even though she had initially been enthusiastic about the prospect of moving without the use of the wheelchair, her experiences over the last week and the amount of agony that was involved had left her doubting that commitment.

" _Oh well, at least the next part is more pleasant."_

"Okay now Keitaro-san," said the trainer, "Let's run down again what you're supposed to do."

Keitaro nodded. Other than moral support this was the reason why he had been attending these therapy sessions with Motoko. As her caretaker and husband he had been informed that there was a role for him to play in Motoko's recovery and of course, Keitaro being Keitaro, he had leapt at the chance to help. It certainly didn't hurt that what came next was something fairly pleasurable for him as well.

The trainer grabbed Keitaro's hands and guided them slowly down Motoko's legs.

"Make sure to check these spots here. Motoko-san, can you feel this?" he asked as Keitaro fingertips brushed the inside of the young girl's thighs.

Motoko nodded. "Feels… normal," she added. Normal was a relative term considering the deadened nerves she had below the waist, but she could feel the movements and the sensation of pressure.

"Also here," the trainer said as she moved Keitaro's hands down lower. "And finally, the bottoms of the feet. Everything good back there Motoko-san?" he called over his shoulder as he demonstrated to Keitaro where exactly to press.

"All g-g-g-good," said Motoko with a supressed giggle. Keitaro's touch was ticklish.

"It's good that you can feel that sensation. Most people in your situation aren't so lucky. It's a positive sign" the trainer said as he gestured to Keitaro for the next step.

"Now carefully move her over like this… It's important to make sure you don't twist her spine too much, she might not be able to feel any pain so you won't know if you're hurting her."

Keitaro gulped and bit back a swell of panic. The last thing he wanted to do was make Motoko's injury any worse than it already was. The trainer seemed to catch on to this and put his hand on Keitaro's shoulder in a reassuring gesture. "It'll be fine, look… Motoko can help you on her own. I'll just sit back and watch."

Keitaro nodded. "Okay Motoko-chan?" he asked. The hesitancy in his voice was clear. Motoko simply nodded and put her elbows down on her side, then using her already sore muscles she started to turn with Keitaro gently helping her lower half rotate in conjunction with her upper torso until she was face down on her belly with her arms under her head like a pillow.

"Are you sure it's okay to do this?" Keitaro asked the trainer. However before the other man could reply, Motoko interrupted on her own, "You better… this is the best part of this hell." Keitaro was slightly taken aback – he had come to notice that in rare moments like this the "old Motoko" and her acerbic comments or caustic tone would surface and it reminded him of the girl that she used to be, but the request was one that he had never thought she would ever utter. It ruefully admitted that it would take him some serious time to get used to this.

"Just work the muscles like I showed you and it'll be fine," the trainer said as he fished around for a clip board that he used to keep track of patient progress.

Keitaro nodded and went to work, his fingers slowly, but firmly kneading the muscles in Motoko's back and sides. He didn't know what was more amazing, the fact that he, the former luckless with ladies Keitaro Urashima was now running his hands all over a beautiful woman, or the fact that this woman was for all intents and purposed actually married to him.

Part of him felt guilty. After all, this "Motoko" wasn't really Motoko at all or at least, not the one he knew best. He was certain that someday her memory would return and when it did he assumed that he'd have a lot to answer for. Compounding the issues at hand were also the feelings he still had for Narusegawa, feelings that she had never answered. It was all entirely confusing and it didn't help that as his backrub moved lower, he kept getting distracted by the jiggling of Motoko's perfect heart shaped derriere.

"Keitaro-san, go lower…" said the former kendo girl as she squirmed softly at his touch. Keitaro took one look at where his hands were and then where they would be if he moved them and gulped.

"But that's your… um…" he started to protest.

"Keitaro…" she began softly, uncharacteristically dropping the honorific, "… I spend all day sitting on it. It's sore. Please."

Keitaro took one sideways glance at the trainer who was busily pretending to be very interested in his clipboard. The other man didn't have to say anything because the words were plain in his smirking face.

" _Oh you poor bastard, having to rub the butt of a gorgeous girl. How I absolutely pity you."_

Keitaro exhaled and slowly moved his fingers further south. Almost simultaneously, both Urashima's gasped, although for entirely different reasons.

" _It's so soft… but firm. I can almost cup it with my hands and oh my I can see in between her legs. Oh no. Oh no no no no."_

Keitaro leapt up in the air as a hard rap on the back of his skull brought him out of his perverted revelry. Pivoting his head in fear he came face to face with the visage of one slightly amused Tsuruko Aoyama. At least, Keitaro assumed she was amused since her grin was slightly less evil than it normally appeared.

"Shouldn't you two save that for private?" Tsuruko asked with a fair bit of cheek.

"Ugh… onee-san," complained Motoko, "You try sitting all day in a wheelchair. This is the only respite I get." It was the truth. Motoko spent most of her time either lying in bed or sitting awkwardly in a chair, trying to use her abdomen to keep herself upright. It put an enormous amount of stress on her lower back and if it wasn't for Keitaro's frequent backrubs, she'd likely be in tears more days than not.

Still Motoko hadn't meant anything by her complaint, but Tsuruko seemed taken aback by the words. Keitaro could see from the look of consternation and guilt on the elder Aoyama sister's face that she was still dealing with her own burden over Motoko's fate and he tried to diffuse the situation.

"Ah… maybe we should go back. I'm feeling a little tired. Tsuruko can you help us back to the room?"

Tsuruko nodded and leaned over to Keitaro, well out of view of the prone Motoko. Her voice was soft, barely audible and she whispered in his ear.

"I need to talk to you. Alone."

LH-LH-LH-LH-LH

Motoko laid back in bed and rubbed a hand over her sore belly and sides. _"Stupid husband stealing sister,"_ she lamented to herself. She didn't know if she had much in the way of experience with boys (she suspected not), nor did she know much about Keitaro's past forays into romance (he was tight lipped about it) but she did recognize that the man to whom she was evidently married was in fact a first class master groper. The boy simply had a way with his hands and Motoko was more than a little annoyed that Tsuruko had stolen him for an afternoon appointment with a doctor.

" _I honestly don't know why he needs to see a doctor. He seems perfectly fine. If I didn't know better I'd think he was an alien or some kind of super-mutant. How does someone heal a broken leg in a month? It seems impossible!"_

Motoko looked around the room that she shared with her husband. They had "moved in together" a little over three weeks ago, with the nurses wheeling her, bed and all, into the room on what was a rather cheery Sunday morning. Even now she still remembered the flush that had come to her face at their incessant teasing of "finally getting to have that honeymoon night". It was a thought that had sent her inexperienced heart racing and filled her with a strange combination of both fear and intrigue.

Of course, rationally the idea of "wedding nuptials" taking place given their current circumstances was preposterous and while she intellectually knew that this was the case for _now,_ she wondered what she would do when such barriers that had been put in place in front of them no longer existed. It was just a matter of time before they would leave the hospital and firmly be ensconced in their own home, their own room and ultimately their own bed. The idea was slightly unsettling and it wasn't because she found Keitaro unattractive – she had spent long hours before he had even woken up studying his face, to the point where even before they had ever spoken to each other she had told Tsuruko that she deemed him to be "quite cute". And of course, ever since he had awoken from his healing coma, he had been nothing but kind and caring to her. To any outside observer this would have seemed like a completely normal and health romantic relationship – they had the titles of husband and wife, they cohabitated, albeit oddly, they laughed with each other and were generally pleasant in each other's company. It was almost perfect expect for one niggling little thing – the decided lack of physical intimacy.

He never tried touched her. He never tried to kiss her. He never tried to hold her. His hand had never moved that small distance between their beds and tried to touch hers. It was almost as if he treated her like she was radioactive or made out of fragile china.

Motoko sighed and picked up the stack of multi-coloured papers that she had left by the side of her bed. They had come as part of a _Senbazuru_ set that she had purchased from the hospital gift shop a few days ago. She had been bored that day, looking for something to entertain herself with, like a new book or a magazine, when instantly her eyes were drawn to the package of colourful papers. For some reason, her Swiss cheese memory, which couldn't recall such simple things like her own name or how she met her husband, had instantly known what these bright sheets were for – making wishes. That revelation was surprising to her, but not as surprising as when she had returned to her room and folded her first crane, realizing that she didn't need the instructions that had come along with the packet.

Now, as she expertly folded a tiny paper crane, guided only by the tactile sense of her fingers, she considered what it was she would wish for.

" _My memory back? A working pair of legs? Or maybe…"_

She glanced over at the empty bed and felt a twinge in her heart as she remembered asking him if they were in love.

" _O-o-of course M-Motoko-chan!"_ he had stammered at her, his obvious embarrassment setting off a chain reaction in her own complexion that turned both of them into a pair of overripe tomatoes. At the time, he had seemed so embarrassed and shy that she had instantly believed him. Now however, she had her doubts.

She considered for a moment how they both seemed to be so shy and awkward about discussing their feelings. Maybe this was the problem, for it was clear even without her memories that Keitaro cared deeply for her. So what if he didn't express it in a way that was more… intimate? Maybe he was just gentle that way? What if he was just concerned about her and her lack of memories? Did he feel as if he would be abusing her trust if he tried to be romantic with her? If that was the case, then didn't that just prove how much he actually treasured her? All of these questions were confusing and while no answers readily presented themselves she knew intimately that a great deal of the problem lay with her and her inability to broach the subject - at least, for now.

" _Soon we'll be leaving here for our home… Let's see how things are then."_

Satisfied with that conclusion, her fingers, always nimble, reached for another piece of paper and began their work. She had quite a few cranes left to fold before she could make her wish.

LH-LH-LH

Keitaro and Tsuruko sat side by side in the doctor's lush and over appointed office and tried to digest the information being related to them by a distinguished looking older gentleman in a pristine white coat. The two of them had just previously had a conversation that Keitaro was still reeling from and although the doctor was being patient and explaining things in a calm manner, he was incredibly distracted.

"So you see Urashima-san, there is very little we can do at this point for either yourself or your wife. In fact, once the orthopaedics team sends over the new devices and tests them for fitting, we should be able to discharge you and your wife."

Keitaro nodded, "Thank you Matsuda-sensei. Also, about the rehabilitation..."

Dr. Matsuda folded his hands on his desk and leaned forward gently. "Ah yes… we will give you a list of hospitals in your area that can follow up on your wife's treatment Urashima-san." He paused for a moment, "But it's important to remember that while Motoko-san may see some improvement, she will never go back to how she was prior to the… accident." Matsuda coughed slightly at the end of his sentence, it wasn't lost on either of them.

"And her… memory?" asked Keitaro hopefully.

The older doctor sighed and leaned back in his chair. Slowly he removed his glasses and inspected them, almost as if he was pondering what to say next. Eventually he settled on holding them in his hand while he faced down what Keitaro was assuming would only be bad news.

"There's nothing we can do," he said bluntly. "There's no medical reason for your wife's condition."

Now it was Tsuruko's turn to speak, "What? How is that possible? She hit her head and…"

Matsuda cut her off, "Aoyama-san, this isn't a children's cartoon. We ran the appropriate tests on your sister and have concluded that she suffered no damage to her frontal lobe. There is no physical reason for her retrograde amnesia. Since that is the case, there is next to nothing that I can do for her…"

Keitaro knew he was about to regret what he was going to say next and he feared what Tsuruko's reaction would be, but he felt that he could risk her wrath if it was for Motoko's sake.

"Ah… Matsuda-sensei, what if the amnesia is because of…" Keitaro fumbled for the correct phrasing, "…some emotional circumstances," he concluded, only to notice out of the corner of his eye that Tsuruko was clenching her fists.

"If that was the case Urashima-san, then perhaps we could treat your wife. " The older man now had a knowing expression; one that seemed to proclaim that he was carefully navigating the conversation into an area he knew would be fraught with some peril. "Could you perhaps consider what these circumstances might be?"

Keitaro began to open his mouth, only to feel Tsuruko grasp his wrist. "Keitaro…" she hissed at him. It took every ounce of willpower and courage that Keitaro possessed to keep from screaming in terror and instead he slowly turned his head to face the elder Aoyama sister.

"We can't help her if…" he began to speak, only to be cut off by Tsuruko.

"We don't know that! This is family business and not for outsiders!" she bickered at him. To his credit, Matsuda remained completely placid during this exchange. Evidently long years of service as a doctor had given him insight on when to interject and when to let things happen.

Keitaro, visibly shaking now, tried to force what courage he had into his voice. "Tsuruko-san… this is more important than some sort of family pride…"

"How would you know?" she spat, "This is my sisters business! I forbid you to say anything more on the matter!"

Keitaro felt his eye twitch and perhaps for the first time in his life his normal state of panic and cowardness was replaced with a new emotion – anger. He recalled the earlier private conversation he had with Tsuruko and how she had said, in no uncertain terms, what would happen to Motoko if they were to get divorced. Not only did this incense him, the utter cruelty of it all, but he couldn't believe the gall of Tsuruko, to lecture _him_ on what was best for Motoko, especially after her part in this tragedy.

"Enough!" he yelled, tearing his hand away from Tsuruko's grip. "You've already made it clear to me that Motoko is _not_ your families concern!"

Tsuruko blanched at this. It was painful, but it was true – she knew that Motoko had all but passed out of the graces of the Aoyama family, not only because of her punishment for avoiding her obligation, but also due to the fact that the loss of her legs had made her completely worthless to them. Sadly, she withdrew her arm in defeat and stood up to leave.

Keitaro immediately regretted the tone that he had used. He knew that Tsuruko felt extreme guilt over her sister's fate and had tried to help her as best as she could under the circumstances, but he also remembered what his Aunt Haruka had told him – if he was serious about helping Motoko then he'd have to start acting like someone who could not only care for her, but protect her as well. Even if it felt surreal to him, he had to start acting like her _husband_.

"Tsuruko-san…" he called before the woman left the room, "Remember… Motoko is my wife."

There was an awkward moment of silence and then Tsuruko left without a word. Sadly, Keitaro turned back to Matsuda, the elder doctor's face still impassive and waiting.

"I apologize Matsuda-sensei. She blames herself…" Keitaro let the sentence hang in the air for a moment and then proceeded to explain in detail the actual circumstances around Motoko's "accident". Matsuda listened as best he could, his expression never changing from its default impassive and inexpressive state. If there was any hint of surprise in his eyes then you would be challenged to find it. Eventually Keitaro's tale came to its conclusion and the senior physician stroked his chin thoughtfully as he composed an appropriate response.

"Urashima-san, I think it goes without saying that you need to consult an expert…" He was merely stating the obvious; Keitaro knew that eventually he'd have to seek some form of professional help for Motoko. The physician then reached into his coat pocket and produced a small card. He had obviously foreseen at least part of the likely conversation to happen today.

"However, I can offer some basic advice," added Matsuda as he passed the business card over the desk. "Call this number and explain your problem. You need help not only for your wife, but for yourself as well. This will be trying for both of you."

Keitaro retrieved the card, glancing at the office and number and then put it in his pocket.

"Also I would recommend two courses of action – first, carry on as you are. It's obvious to everyone that you care a great deal for Motoko-san and after everything you explained to me, I can honestly say… I find it quite admirable."

Keitaro wished that he felt the same as Matsuda. He had always considered himself hapless, prone to error and indecisive. Now he felt himself choking under the burden of having to be responsible for another human life.

"Second, I would say that the Tsuruko-san's concern for her sister is not misplaced. I agree that it was wise to keep certain… facts, a secret, at least for now. Let's not risk a repeat of this circumstance, correct?"

Keitaro nodded. He understood the context implicitly; it was perhaps his one greatest fear. Not a night had gone by since he had awoken from his coma where he wasn't troubled by the ghostly visage of Motoko balanced precipitously over the edge of that dark mountain side, her wedding kimono flowing in the wind and the feeling of dread shrouding her like a cemetery.

"Urashima-san, I think it would be best if you and your wife moved on with your life as soon as you can. I'll see about getting you discharged as soon as possible."

And with that, the gentlemanly doctor escorted Keitaro out of the office and into an uncertain future.

LH-LH-LH

Motoko sat awkwardly on the long bench, leaning slightly against Keitaro who had been dozing for most of the last half hour. She had to admit that she was amazed at how healthy he seemed considering just a month ago he looked more like a patched together monster than a complete human being.

" _Well, he had said he was tough… It's amusing because he doesn't look it._ "

She looked down at the train guide that she had been using to plot their destination and then again at the time on her watch. The watch alone was pretty funny – Tsuruko had given it to her just this morning and Motoko had looked at the gift in disbelief.

"Hello Kitty?" she had asked, somewhat impressed that she even recognized the cartoon character.

Tsuruko looked slightly abashed and explained, "They didn't have many options. Get your own watch later." Sliding behind her sister, Tsuruko had started to push Motoko towards the hospital foyer.

"How's the chair?" she asked idly.

Motoko squirmed her butt around a bit and then bit her lip in thought.

"It's good I think… better than the hospital ones," she declared.

Tsuruko nodded. "Those weren't made for… well using all the time." There was a hint of sadness in Tsuruko's voice but Motoko made the conscious effort to ignore it. It bothered her somewhat how her sister seemed to vacillate between her irreverent humor and moments of barely hidden sorrow. She was glad that Keitaro at least, was constantly upbeat. Maybe it meant that he didn't pity her as much. It was a nice thought and she concluded that somewhere a part of her mind really didn't want to contemplate being pitied by her new husband.

Now, hours away and close to their destination, she looked over at the man in question and wondered what the future was going to hold in store for them both. If she was to understand things correctly, Keitaro-san was the owner of an inn that had formerly been a hot springs resort in the town of Hina City. It was the place where she had lived and the place where they had met. These two facts made her extremely nervous – Keitaro had been so exceptionally kind to her that she felt ashamed for not knowing him or knowing their shared past, if returning to Hinata-sou didn't dislodge some of those hidden memories then she felt almost as if she would be betraying him. She was so wrapped up in these thoughts that she almost didn't hear the signalling tones announcing the next stop.

"Keitaro-san," she said as she gently nudged her slumbering husband. "Keitaro-san, it's time to wake up…"

Keitaro wriggled slightly in his sleep and mumbled, "I don't want to go to cram-school Naru…"

Motoko snorted. She was aware that her husband had recently been admitted into the illustrious University of Tokyo. It seemed that he was still having dreams, or perhaps it was nightmares, about his time as a ronin.

"Wake up Keitaro-san, our stop is coming up!" she continued her gentle shaking until Keitaro finally began to stir.

"What?" he asked, his voice still groggy.

"Our stop is coming up. Help me get into the chair please?" Motoko asked.

"Ah… right," said Keitaro as he stood up and began to unfold the wheelchair that had been placed against one of the other seats.

"Don't forget the lock…" Motoko muttered. Earlier in the trip she had needed to use the restroom and Keitaro had forgotten to lock the wheels as he tried to transfer her to the chair. The results, while not fatal, were not pretty. She vowed to never let him forget again.

Keitaro let Motoko use his shoulders as she grabbed and pulled herself into the waiting chair. "Are you excited about seeing Hinata again?" he asked.

Motoko eased herself back into her chair and tried to straighten out her hair and blouse. "I suppose I'm excited about everything… this is all new to me."

Keitaro rubbed the back of his head and looked sheepish. "Oh, right. Sorry I keep forgetting that you… um… forgot." Motoko couldn't help but laugh at the older boy. Keitaro's clumsy, but earnest behavior wasn't nearly as off-putting as the people who treated her like she was mentally retarded due to her "condition".

The train began to slow and Keitaro quickly grabbed their luggage, which mostly just consisted of a couple shopping bags filled with items Tsuruko had brought them and some other small purchases they had made.

"I'll take those," said Motoko as she grabbed the pair of shopping bags and placed them in her lap.

The train gave another signal tone and came to an abrupt halt. Motoko turned her head to look up at Keitaro, her face was clouded with concern and he could guess the reasons. Not that there was anything he could do about it, at least not anything he was aware of, so instead he settled on just doing what he always did when he felt inadequate about expressing his feelings – he smiled. Thankfully it appeared to be enough for Motoko and she gave her own faint smile and then turned her head and then spoke in a soft voice.

"Let's go home."

LH-LH-LH

Authors Note:

This was a fairly decent sized chapter, but I still wonder if it was long enough to push all the developments that I wanted to in it. I tend not to faff around too much with extraneous scenes and words if I don't have to, preferring to instead briskly move the plot and events forward. I actually wondered how I should characterize Motoko's amnesia for this chapter, since I need to start putting some of the "rules" if you will in place for how things will develop in the future. Eventually I settled on a few things that should be apparent from this chapter, but in the terms of the amnesia I think it both makes sense for this to actually be selective memory loss (repressed memories) than presenting as actual retrograde amnesia. The latter is actually… quite a bitch to write since anyone suffering from it would forget lots of seemingly random things that we'd take for granted (like the concepts of weather being different in another location that you see on TV from what it's like outside). And while that would be interesting to write… I just don't have the time to portray that in this work without eating into the character interactions and story that I want to tell.

Anyway, once again I want to thank everyone for reading this story and particularly I want to thank the people who have either provided feedback in the reviews or have had conversations with me in private messages. Your encouragement is what keeps me writing instead of putting things off.

Thanks,

QC


	4. Chapter 4

"I have an announcement to make," said Haruka Urashima, her ever present cigarette dangling precipitously from her nicotine stained lips.

The collective residents of the Hinata-sou, sans two, were assembled in the lounge before her. The irritable Naru Narusegawa and her best friend, the cunning Kitsune Konno were sharing a large love seat while the three younger residents, Shinobu Maehara, Kaolla Su and Sarah McDougal momentarily removed their attention from a portable game that Su and Sarah were struggling over. Everyone was fairly certain about what was to come next, but still the atmosphere was pregnant with anticipation. They were all waiting for Haruka to put the ending punctuation on a statement that they'd all been contemplating over the last few weeks.

Clearing her throat, the elder Urashima's face remained stony and impassive. There was no good way to do what needed to be done, so she just dove right into it.

"Keitaro and Motoko are coming home tomorrow."

Asides from the ever rambunctious Su, who gave a fist pump and a cheer, the rest of the Hinata crew remained relatively reserved. Maybe, just maybe, Sarah muttered something about a dork under her breath as she took the opportunity to swipe the gaming handheld back from her friend. Naru and Kitsune each wore indecipherable expressions and Shinobu, as she was wont to do, merely looked exasperated and bordering on tears. Haruka decided to screw it all and push ahead.

"There's going to be a few new rules. These rules are not debatable," she emphasized the point by gesturing to the girls on the couch with her unlit cigarette.

"First off, as I'm sure everyone's noticed, I've moved Motoko's stuff into the Managers room. She'll be staying with Keitaro for the foreseeable future."

She locked eyes on the duo sitting on the love seat. "Regardless of how individual tenants may feel about the situation I want to make this point clear – They. Are. Married." The staccato diction of those last three words were verbal gunshots aimed directly at Naru and Kitsune – it wasn't in Haruka's nature to beat around the bush.

Haruka had half expected tears or hysterics from some of the girls, and honestly, Shinobu was the most likely to start crying, but to their credit both Narusegawa and the younger girl managed to maintain some semblance of a poker face. Surprisingly enough it was Konno who raised the first objection.

"About that…" began the sly Fox, "I don't mind if they keep it down…" she made clear her meaning by wiggling her pinkie finger lewdly in the air, the gesture having the predictable effect of causing both Shinobu and Naru to turn red, albeit for entirely different reasons.

"But if they…" she tried to continue, only to be cut off by Haruka.

"You can move then. Take a room on the third floor. I'll even help you move today." Haruka spoke with a finality that made clear she'd brook no further discussion on the subject, which was probably for the best considering Narusegawa looked as if she was about to break something.

Kitsune raised her hands in the air and gave an obviously fake demure shrug. _"_ Oh no, that's fine…"

Haruka inwardly cringed. She could tell that Kitsune wasn't going down without a fight, or at least, wasn't going down without making someone _else_ start a fight.

"I don't think Motoko-chan would be much of a screamer, although you never know…."

" _God damn it Kitsune!_ " thought Haruka. She had expected this, but had hoped for better behavior out of the girl, if not for any other reason than the fact that she knew each word was stabbing directly into the heart of her own best friend.

"Auuugh!" went Shinobu, who quickly shoved both of her hands over her own mouth. It was obvious that the younger girl was trying desperately to hold back her own tears and feelings.

"What does that mean?" asked Su innocently, only to have Sarah lean over and whisper something in her ear that caused the Molmolian princess to break out in an unusual blush and go silent.

Haruka grimaced. _"I need to talk to Seta about that girl. She's far too mature for her age."_

Finally, the reaction that everyone had been expecting exploded with familiar volume and heat.

"Baka!" blurted out Naru, "Baka! Baka! Baka!" she chanted, each iteration causing her face to get redder and her fists to pump up and down.

Haruka inwardly sighed. She needed to cut this off before the ill-tempered girl went completely ballistic.

"Naru…" she began.

"No!" screamed Narusegawa, "We all know this is wrong!" she locked eyes on Haruka, spittle practically flying from her lips, "And YOU know this is wrong! Why are you letting this happen?"

" _Yes… why indeed? God Keitaro, I hope you know what you're doing…"_

Haruka pinched the bridge of her nose. There was no getting around it, sooner or later she'd have to have this conversation with these girls and now it seemed was the appropriate time.

"Be that as it may…" Haruka looked around at the assembled group, "The fact of the matter is that Motoko doesn't know it."

This got a snort of derision from both Kitsune and Naru, with the later girl obviously gearing up for another one of her patented tirades. Haruka merely held up her hand to silence her.

"This was going to come out eventually, so it might as well be now before any of you can do anything stupid." She glared directly at Kitsune, the meaning wasn't lost.

"About Motoko's accident…"

The girls had been made aware of the "accident" or at least, the cover story for what had actually happened, so they were aware that Motoko had been injured. Some of the more recent changes around the Hinata-sou had left little to their imagination about how serious her injuries were. However, they hadn't heard the "full" story. Haruka clearly had to make this plain.

"There's no clever way to say this – Motoko has amnesia. She's lost her memory."

This elicited a wide array of gasps from everyone present, only Kitsune's face was inscrutable and if Haruka knew the girl as well as she thought she did, she knew _exactly_ what she was thinking. Haruka quickly decided to press on before Kitsune could launch her attack on the dubious morality of having a woman with no memories shacking up with a man she had loudly decried as a pervert for months on end.

"As far as Motoko-chan is concerned, Keitaro is her husband." She paused and looked directly at the two girls on the couch.

"Her husband that takes care of her despite her injuries," she continued, making sure to look directly at the obviously annoyed fox.

"And unless the rest of you are considering things like financially supporting her…" this got Kitsune to look away.

Haruka continued, "Or, helping her to the toilet in the middle of the night..."

Now it was Narusegawa's turn to blanch.

"Then I expect all of you to merely support them as Motoko tries to recover."

Everyone seemed to settle down at this. Even Shinobu managed to regain some precious self-control, only to utter out a plaintive "Senpai…" tinged with sadness.

Su stood up from the couch, a look of excitement on her face. "I got it! I'll make a memory restoration device!"

The diminutive Molmolian was just about to bound down the hall before Haruka brought her up short by the scruff of her collar.

"No you won't," the elder woman said, perhaps a little more gruffly than she had intended. She caught herself and tried to remain calm. Getting angry with Su wouldn't help anything.

"Look Su-chan, no memory restoration devices, no cybernetic enhancements, no robot exoskeletons, nothing like that – okay?" She patted the petite blonde on the head.

"Everyone," she continued, "If you want to help then just be their friends. This is a hard time for them right now, particularly for Motoko." She ushered Su back to her seat.

"She won't know us. The only people she knows are Keitaro and her sister. Don't take it personally if she's not the same girl you remember."

"Uh… Haruka-san…" Unexpectedly, this was Shinobu.

"What can we do for…" she paused for a moment, her mind calculating the right sentiment, "…for them."

Haruka sized up the diminutive chef. Shinobu's crush on Keitaro was an open secret, but it appeared that the girl was conflicted between her devotion to her "senpai" and genuinely wanting to help her friend as well. She vowed to keep an eye on the girl. _"It's always the quiet ones."_

"Keitaro's talked to some doctors and of course Motoko will be getting some help that way. However, we spoke this morning and he made it very clear that the best thing we can all do right now is to just support them. Hopefully in time she will recover her memories – being here at the Hinata will probably help that. The only thing I will directly ask is for everyone to _not_ undermine her relationship with Keitaro."

There was a predictable reaction from the usual culprits and Haruka muttered a curse under her breath. She had to make this point crystal clear.

"I mean this – The doctors have said that this could be extremely upsetting to her," she continued, "and the results could be…"

She let that thought linger in the air and simply let the scowl on her face end the sentence.

Haruka looked around at the girls once again. Her gut was telling her that this was a bad idea. Her experience with these little hellions was telling her that everything was going to go pear shaped before the week was out. Her heart was telling her that if anyone could pull it off, it was her dumbass "nephew". She decided to go with that last thought and put her hands together as she addressed the group for a final time.

"Everyone… it's hard to ask this of you, but even if you don't approve, please respect our families decision in this matter. Keitaro is still your manager and will do his best for you, even with his new responsibilities. Motoko is still your friend and I'm sure your feelings will reach her memories over time. If anyone has anything they want to discuss in private, I'm returning to the tea house now."

She bowed deeply to everyone. It was an unusual gesture on her part and one that punctuated the seriousness of her request.

"Thank you, everybody," she stated without a hint of irony and then turned away. It would be better for her to leave for now, both to give the younger girls time to come to grips with their own feelings as well as to make sure that she could sort out her own before her nephew and his new bride arrived.

LH-LH-LH

Keitaro pushed Motoko's wheelchair across the bridge leading from the train station and took in the sights before him. Even though it had only been a few weeks since the last time he had seen this particularly sunset, in his heart he felt like it was a million years ago.

" _Obviously things have changed. Nothing stay the same forever._ " He looked down at the back of the head of the woman he was pushing and bit his lip.

" _And not everyone stays the same, for good or for ill."_

It was a sobering thought, but also true. Motoko had changed, perhaps the most of all and certainly not for the better. Her life, whatever it would end up being, would be dramatically harder for her from here on out. Without noticing it, Keitaro's feet came to a stop.

"Keitaro-san?" asked Motoko. She had tilted her head around to face him and Keitaro noticed the soft amber hue of the fading sun lighting upon her cheek. Keitaro had always thought that Motoko was beautiful, far more than she ever gave herself credit for, but in this light she looked like an angel – a beautiful, wounded angel.

" _Her eyes… have they ever looked at me with so much trust?"_ he thought to himself.

His first feeling was one of strange contentment. He wasn't sure that any woman barring his own sister had ever looked at him with such kindness before and the sentiment of the moment was marred by the guilt he still felt over lying to her.

"Ah… I was just taking in the sights. It's been a long time since I've seen this view," he replied as he forced himself to tear his gaze from Motoko and look out across cityscape.

"It's pretty," stated Motoko, "I've never seen… I mean, I guess…" she fumbled for the right words.

Keitaro just smiled at her. "It's okay, I know what you mean."

And he did. This was perhaps the first sunset other than the fading light through the hospital windows that Motoko could ever remember seeing.

"That's the Hinata-sou up there on the hill," he gestured to the ancient inn on the hill.

Motoko nodded and placed her hands on the bridge rail. Without asking for help, she attempted to pull herself up. Keitaro swiftly lent her his arm around her waist, bringing them close together and eliciting a slight blush from the raven haired girl.

"And that over there?" she nodded her head towards the blue expanse in the distance, her hands still firmly gripping the worn railing.

"Sagami Bay, it's nice. There's a beach there, but it's not as good as the one we went to last year."

There was a subtle pause and Keitaro glanced briefly over to Motoko who was gazing off into the distance. Softly she began to speak.

"I'd like to go… to the ocean someday. I wonder what it's like to float away," her voice was twinged with an undercurrent of longing that surprised Keitaro. The Motoko he knew wasn't nearly as open, or at least, as openly romantic as this strange girl next to him.

"Hmm. I wonder," said Keitaro idly, mostly to himself. Suddenly, almost as if a lightbulb went off in his head, he had a thought.

"We can go you know," his voice was filled with an undercurrent of excitement. He was always happy when he could help someone else fulfil a dream.

"In a few weeks, Haruka usually goes to the sea-side café, I wasn't planning on it this year…"

Truthfully, he had been planning on being in school during the festival, or at least studying, but his injury earlier in the year had prevented that. Of course, this left open a whole slew of new possibilities that he hadn't even contemplated yet.

Motoko looked at Keitaro and smiled. "We don't have to go Keitaro-san, it was just a..." she struggled for the word, "…moment I guess."

Keitaro moved his arm up along Motoko's waist and pulled the two of them closer together while he spoke, never reflecting on how easy it was for him to get _this close_ to Motoko, or at least, the "new" Motoko.

"It's okay! Honestly, we could probably use the money and it'd be a lot of fun!"

Motoko chuckled at Keitaro's enthusiasm and decided to have a little joke at his expense. "You probably just want to look at the girls in their swimsuits!" she said saucily.

"What?!" gasped Keitaro," No! No! I swear Motoko-chan, I..." Keitaro began to fumble over his words, sweat perspiring on his forehead.

"It's a joke! A joke Keitaro-san!" she interjected.

She had already determined that Keitaro was a relatively reserved young man, but she hadn't expected his eyes to go as big as saucers at the mere hint of sexual innuendo. It almost looked to her as if he was preparing to be slapped and for some reason this thought gave her a profound sense of sadness. She took a risk and removed one of her hands from the guard rail and placed it on Keitaro's shoulder.

"I can do jokes, can't I?" she asked with a smile. "It's not like I'm going to hit you or something…"

Keitaro smiled back at her, but it was a sickly and weak thing that made Motoko frown.

" _It seems like I ruined the moment,"_ she thought to herself with resignation. Keitaro confirmed it with his next words.

"We're running late; let's just get to the tea house."

LH-LH-LH

The _Wafū Chabō Hinata_ , or _Traditional Tea Room Hinata_ , had been closed for the better part of an hour and its proprietor and manager, Haruka Urashima was steadying herself against a conveniently placed bit of fencing while she killed time through the use of a half a pack of Marlboro cigarettes and a zen technique that she referred to quite plainly as "not giving a shit".

" _These things are going to kill me someday,"_ she thought as she stubbed another depleted butt under her heel. Turning her head back to the path, she made out two recognizable figures in the distance. Other people might have waved, or called out their names, but that just wasn't Haruka's style. Instead she sat, lit another cigarette and waited.

"Hello! Aunt Haruka!" called Keitaro as he approached.

Haruka's response was to merely stand up and stare and while yes, part of it was due to the fact that her inner nature was one of cold hearted indifference to everything, a greater part of the response was simply her brain trying to come to terms with seeing her nephew pushing Motoko along the street in a wheelchair.

" _This just shouldn't be happening._ "

"Keitaro," she stated by way of greeting and then turned her attention to woman in the chair.

"Motoko-san," she nodded her head in the younger woman's direction. It was about as formal as she was willing to get right now.

Motoko did her best to reply with a bow from sitting, "Aunt Haruka," she stated.

There was a glint in Haruka's eye, a moment of almost indecisiveness as she contemplated her next move. Then, without mercy, her hand swung out and she wailed Keitaro over the head with a large manila envelope she had been carrying under her arm.

"It's Haruka-san," she stared at Keitaro.

"What?" he gasped, "She said it not me!" he complained.

Haruka snorted. "You said it too. Anyway, welcome home the both of you."

It wasn't like Haruka Urashima to be effusive in either greetings or goodbyes, so she simply turned around and began to walk.

"Let's get this tour on the road. Come back behind the Tea House," she said.

Keitaro and Motoko just looked at each other, eyebrows raised.

"That's Aunt Haruka for you…" whispered Keitaro.

"HARUKA-SAN!" came the bellow from around the corner.

Keitaro cringed and began to push Motoko after Haruka. "Sorry!" he wailed as he tried to catch up to his Aunt.

"Hey, Keitaro – let her do that herself," said Haruka as the husband and wife team rounded the corner.

"Eh… but…" Keitaro started to complain, only to be silenced by Motoko.

"It's okay Keitaro-san," she said as she handed him the bags she had been carrying in her lap.

Keitaro was obviously unhappy as he accepted the bags. "I'm just trying to help…" he offered lamely.

Haruka grunted at the boy. He was nice, soft hearted, and in her opinion, a little dumb. She might as well explain it to him.

"Yes, you're a very doting husband Keitaro," she said sardonically as she approached the two.

"However, we need Motoko to show us she can get around with all this…" she waved her hand behind her, drawing attention to a bit of new construction that Keitaro hadn't noticed before.

"Ah!" he spoke, realization finally starting to dawn upon him. "A ramp? For the…"

Before he could even finish the thought, Motoko was already wheeling herself up the slight incline alongside an unusually animated Haruka who was discussing the improvements to the Hinata-sou that Keitaro's inheritance had purchased.

"There's another ramp in the main parking lot so if you need to take a taxi someplace you can get in and out of the building," said Haruka as the two rounded up another incline – there were three in total, zig-zagging back and forth behind the tea shop and up the incline facing the inn.

"Now, around here is the biggest change we made and probably a bit overdue," she said as they continued approaching the hill that the Hinata-sou rested upon. It didn't take long for Motoko and Keitaro to see what she was talking about.

"Is that an elevator?" asked Keitaro, only half comprehending what he was seeing.

"Yes. Motoko – the button is over there," Haruka gestured to a small box sitting on a post. It was about arm level to someone sitting in a wheelchair. Motoko looked at it with an amused expression on her face and pressed the flat square button.

"We also had to redesign the kitchen a little bit, by the way Shinobu thanks you for the new stove top Keitaro. Anyway the elevator runs up the side here to the top floor of the main building."

At that moment, the elevator door opened. Haruka stepped aside to allow Motoko to enter and then both she and Keitaro piled in.

"It's a little snug…" said Keitaro as he eyed the simple control panel on the inside. His mind was already racing as to what sort of mischief the other tenants could cause with such an obviously expensive addition to the inn.

Haruka just shrugged and pressed the button for the 1st floor. "It's all you could afford Keitaro."

Motoko flinched. She was certain that Haruka hadn't intended it, but she couldn't help but feel somewhat ashamed at the obvious financial burden she had placed upon her new husband and his family.

"Aunt Haruka, I'm sorry…" she began to say, only to be screaming, "Ouch!" seconds later as she found herself on the receiving end of one of Haruka's infamous head slaps.

"Haruka-san," said the elder Urashima without missing a beat.

As the door opened and the trio left the confines of the elevator, Keitaro turned to his aunt and said, "And here I thought you were going to show Motoko-chan special treatment."

Haruka screwed up her face and looked at Motoko in a way that caused the younger girl to squirm.

"No. That was for apologizing."

This drew a blank look from the newlywed couple.

"Come on, let's get on with the rest of the tour," said Haruka as she turned her back to her idiot relations. She knew that she might be a bit cold and indifferent, but that didn't mean that she didn't know how to take care of her family.

" _Maybe those two idiots are more alike than I thought."_

LH-LH-LH

"So there you go _Manager-san_ ," said Haruka as she ambled over to a chair in the main lounge.

Keitaro took a seat next to his wife and began to scratch his chin. The "tour" as it was had been relatively short. Asides from the major changes such as the elevator and ramps leading up to the buildings, the rest of the changes were minor. Replacing a few steps with ramps, widening some bathroom doors, a new bench in the bathing area that had hand holds. Nothing really major, but eminently useful for someone with Motoko's needs.

"About the bathrooms," he asked, "I noticed the fixtures were new… did the plumbing change much?"

It was an entirely practical question. Keitaro was after all the individual mostly responsible for fixing the various mechanical breakdowns around the place.

"I left all that stuff in the managers room," said Haruka. "Updated the plans and left the numbers for all the contractors in case you need to call them."

She smiled briefly but then hid it. Keitaro didn't realize, or at least it never occurred to him, that he did far more work around the Hinata than Haruka had ever done. Not because she was lazy of course, but simply because Keitaro was far better with his hands than she was. It was likely that none of the other residents had ever truly appreciated it, but without Keitaro the Hinata-sou would have shut down months ago simply due to age and the inevitable inertia of decay.

"Oh and there's this too." Haruka tossed the envelope that she had been carrying across the room to Keitaro. The boy fumbled for it and dropped it on the floor. _"Typical"_ she thought. She waited for the customary look of confused bewilderment to cross her "nephews" face.

"H-Haruka-san!" he exclaimed as he finally began to understand what he had just been handed.

Haruka removed her cigarette from her mouth and placed it between her thumb and forefinger, rolling it around absently. She chose her words carefully.

"Yes… _Landlord-san_?" she said with twisted smirk on her face that even got Motoko's attention.

Keitaro's expression, already distraught, turned into one of pure panic.

"Why?" he croaked. It was a good question.

"I told you Keitaro. It's your inheritance," his aunt stated bluntly. It was fairly evident that she was enjoying this little surprise.

Motoko couldn't control her curiosity and somewhat presumptuously (at least for her) she reached over and began to peek at the contents of the envelope that Keitaro had spilled onto his lap. It didn't take her long to notice the words printed in bold on the top of the pile of documents, "PROPERTY DEED."

"But the tea house too?" asked Keitaro with obvious puzzlement.

Haruka shook her head slowly. "Don't expect me to call you boss anytime soon. You own the building but I own the business. I pay you rent. The same goes for the beach house."

Keitaro nodded and sat back in his chair, obviously relaxed. The idea of anyone but Haruka owning the Tea House was something that made him extremely uncomfortable, even if that owner was him – _especially_ if that owner was him. He didn't know if he could have ever looked his aunt in the eyes again if Granny Hina had left him what he had long considered to be not only Haruka's birthright, but the one place where she seemed to truly belong in the world.

"Honestly… that's a relief," he stated as he readjusted his eyeglasses. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I couldn't stand being your manager."

Haruka looked sideways at the boy. "How else am I supposed to take that Keitaro?" she asked. Her tone was more acrid than her cigarettes.

Keitaro cracked an awkward grin and tried to recover. "Ah… I… respect you too much?" he tried feebly.

Motoko put her hand on top of Keitaro's. Initially he almost flinched at the contact but managed to calm his already frazzled nerves. At least it was only Haruka present and not the other residents. The idea of Naru or Kitsune seeing such a casual gesture from Motoko was something that he just wasn't ready for yet – even if he knew that in all likelihood his time for avoiding the issue was running out.

"I think what Keitaro-san is trying to say Haruka-san…" Motoko's speech always tended to err on the side of "formal", but her tone now was much more polished than the brusque demeanour Keitaro was used to.

"…is that he has many responsibilities and while we are grateful that Grandmother has provided for us, we are also grateful that you remain in your current position as well."

She ended her statement with a curt bow that seemed far too authentic and sincere for Haruka to take seriously. There was a blustering silence in the room, so much so that Keitaro was certain he could hear a drip coming from a leaky faucet someplace on the premises. Imaginary cicadas began chirping in his mind.

Haruka cleared her throat.

"Okay. Fine," she said. Haruka was short, terse and to the point, but this didn't stop her from shooting Keitaro a look that could clearly be deciphered as, _"What the hell was that?"_

" _Beats me!"_ thought Keitaro as hard as he could. Hopefully Haruka picked up the message.

"So… where is everyone?" asked Keitaro in an attempt to break the awkward mood.

Haruka paused for a moment, looking over her shoulder and in the direction of hallway that connected the lounge to the kitchen.

"They should be getting dinner ready and certainly not spying on us right now," she said. Almost as if on cue, there was a loud crash and what almost sounded like "Dammit Kitsune!"

Haruka rolled her eyes. At least _some_ things were already back to normal.

"Anyway, you two must be hungry? Ready to check out the kitchen?" she asked as she rose from her seat.

Keitaro smiled. "Let me tell you, after a month of hospital food I am really looking forward to some of Shinobu's cooking."

The name 'Shinobu' seemed to click with something in Motoko's head and she turned to Keitaro and asked, "Shinobu… she's the middle school girl that works here, right?"

Keitaro moved behind his wife's chair and started to escort her out of the room. "Well, she gets a rent discount… and she's a high schooler now. Both her and Kaolla Su are in the same grade."

The dining room and kitchen at the Hinata-sou was a free-standing edifice not directly connected to the main building except by way of a small covered path. Keitaro had noticed the few steps that had been there had been replaced with a slight ramp and wondered what other small "improvements" had escaped his notice. Out of the three of them, Haruka entered the kitchen first, leading the way for the couple and announcing their arrival.

"Everyone, the happy couple are here," she deadpanned into the room.

She hadn't really been expecting that to get a rise out of anyone so she was more than a little surprised when she heard the _snapping_ sound of Narusegawa's chopsticks splintering into toothpicks.

" _That one's going to be a problem. Funny, I would have figured it'd be her best friend instead._ "

"We're back!" shouted Keitaro as he wheeled Motoko into the room to face the assembled residents of the Hinata-sou. Motoko, while nervous, had done her best to put forth a good or "happy" face for the benefit of the other residents. Her smile, as fake as it was, instantly crumbled when she saw the looks the other women were giving her. Not a single one of them bore an expression other than shock, disbelief or as Motoko noticed on one beautiful auburn haired young woman - barely concealed contempt.

There was a discordant reply of "Welcome home!" from the still shocked Hinata girls that was immediately followed by an awkward silence as the two groups tried to figure out where to go next. Luckily for all involved, Haruka decided to (once again) cover for the lack of social tact amongst the collective assemblage.

"Everyone knows the score," she said with a quick nod to Motoko.

"Introductions, left to right," she pointed at Kaolla and then marched off to make herself a drink, likely the first of many for the night and it certainly wasn't going to be tea.

"Oh wow! This is so cool! You don't really remember anything do you Motoko?" asked Kaolla, her voice practically quaking with excitement.

"Kaolla!" gasped Shinobu at her friends antics. She wasn't sure what the proper etiquette of the situation was, but she was fairly certain ranting in excitement over Motoko's amnesia wasn't acceptable anywhere, even in Molmol.

Motoko waved her hands and tried to force another smile. At least this strange brown girl wasn't treating her like fragile glass.

"It's fine. Yes… Su-chan is it? There's a lot that I don't remember right now, but most troublesome is the fact that I cannot remember people or places. When I woke up in the hospital I didn't even remember my own name."

This pronouncement drew a long whistle out of Kitsune. "That's like something out of a bad soap opera…" the ash-haired blonde seemed to be contemplating something for a moment, but obviously decided to let it pass.

Keitaro broke away briefly from Motoko's side to address the group. He hadn't originally planned on doing this, at least not this instant, but since Su had already brought the issue front and center he decided to be direct… for once.

"Everyone, before we continue I just want to say a few things."

He gulped, steeling his nerve and thrusting his hands into his pocket to mask how absolutely bloody nervous he was.

"First, as your manager I am glad to be back and I will do whatever I can to fix everything… around here," He had looked directly at Naru when he said this, hoping that she understood the intention.

"And… uh…" he glanced briefly at Motoko, "…I'm sure everyone wants to support Motoko because she's our precious _friend_."

There was some mutterings of approval at this and a couple of nods. Keitaro felt the wind coming back into his sails. It seemed things were heading in the right direction.

"And the best way we can do that is to make sure we behave as normal as possible."

To his credit, Keitaro managed to actually say that line with a straight face. "Normal" for the people who inhabited this dormitory was actually a certain brand of lunacy that under the current circumstances made his skin crawl. At least it sounded _nice_.

"And finally, as Motoko's husband, I entrust her and I to your care."

Keitaro made a deep bow in an attempt to relate his earnest feelings to girls. He was staring directly at the floor when he heard the clarion call of the Hinata-sou's resident tsundere.

"BAKA!"

At this point in Keitaro's life, what happened next was more or less an automatic response. Quickly he changed positions, cowering and covering his head as he awaited the inevitable punch that would send him careening across the floor. However, to his surprise, it never came. Instead Kitsune had managed to both cover Naru's mouth with her own hand as well as lock the younger girls arm behind her back with a skill that looked more like it belonged to a professional bouncer rather than one who was continually being "bounced" from bars.

"Ah ha! Sorry! Sorry!" the Fox rasped as she put on her best fake 1000 watt smile. "Naru-chan needs the toilet!"

Naru was struggling now, her face reaching boiling hot degrees of red fury, as Kitsune tried to frogmarch her out of the kitchen.

"Ha ha! Don't mind us! She has explosive diarrhea! I'm sure she'll be fine in the morning~" she lilted as she gave the furious girl a push through the door.

All eyes were on the backs of the retreating duo, each person lost in their own thoughts. The spell however didn't last long. It was Su who eventually broke it.

"What's diarrhea, is it…"

"SU!" screamed everyone in unison.

LH-LH-LH

Authors Note:

This chapter was a little overlong for me, or at least, longer than I like to write for a single chapter. Still even saying that I found myself wanting to add a few more scenes. There were also some variant or divergent scenarios I had contemplated writing – one for instance involved a complete introduction with the girls, another one involved the girls being introduced over time during a longer tour bit. Eventually I settled on abstracting some of the activity and focusing on the character interactions.

I want to thank everyone again who's been reviewing this story (including the anonymous reviewers) and particularly I want to thank the people who have marked this story as a favorite. I have to admit that one of the reasons why I put out another chapter so fast is because I saw that today this story had already reached a significant number of favorites in a short period of time. I felt that was a good indicator that I was heading down the right path.

Anyway, thanks again everyone for reading and please drop me a review, particularly if you can point out a piece of the story (so far) that you like, or a character that you like, etc and let me know why. I'm curious as to what bits of the story I should be focusing on just as much as I am curious about what parts I could improve. I mean this sincerely, I do actually try to focus in on comments people make and then carry those forward into my work. This is getting long so I'll sign off now.

QC


	5. Chapter 5

"sh-that's a vwery cute watsh shenpai..." slurred Shinobu Maehara as she attempted to steady her teetering body against a nearby counter. The "welcome home" party had largely spun out of control about an hour ago with the introduction of some mysterious liquid substance into a large pitcher of "juice" everyone had been partaking of. Motoko reasoned that this must not be an all too uncommon event considering no one made any mention of it, or seemed particularly worried that there were underage girls getting smashed off their faces.

She sipped her own drink with a fair bit more restraint and caution.

"Do you like it?" asked the raven haired woman as she held up her wrist to proudly display "Hello Kitty" in all her pink, plastic glory.

Shinobu made a noise that sounded like an affirmative crossed with a giggle and nodded her head. It was obvious that she was struggling to contain her mirth. This caught Motoko's attention.

"Hey… Shinobu?" she asked, suspicion heavy in her voice, "Do _I_ like this?"

The younger girl couldn't contain her amusement any longer and began to sputter and laugh, "Hehehe n-n-not r-r-really! Hehehehe!"

Motoko rolled her eyes. "Tsuruko…" she muttered under her breath.

"Hey, shouldn't you be going a little slow with that?" asked Motoko as she gestured to the plastic cup in Shinobu's hand, "After all… aren't you just in high school?"

Shinobu looked a little abashed and hunched her shoulders slightly. "S-so are y-y-you!" she said, the liquid courage bolstering her otherwise meek nature.

Motoko looked down at her own cup. When it came to the drinking, she had been exercising a great deal of restraint. For some reason she felt it was just appropriate. Maybe this was just how she was?

"You got me there, although I'm trying to pace myself… Do these parties happen frequently? Like this?" she asked.

Shinobu rubbed her nose with the back of her hand and took another drink.

"Not really… hehe last time we had one was when senpai passed his exam for Todai. We drank so much that night!"

"Didn't Narusegawa-san pass at the same time?" asked Motoko. She was already starting to pick up on a peculiar verbal habit of Shinobu's and she wasn't sure how she felt about it.

Shinobu stared out across the room and locked her gaze on the irritable brunette known as Naru Narusegawa. Naru and her best friend Kitsune had rejoined the group shortly after the formers "bathroom emergency". For the most part the fiery _tsundere_ had managed to behave herself even if she wasn't exactly socializing with anyone.

"Yes… I guess so," said Shinobu with a tone that could have curdled milk.

Motoko exhaled her breath into the bottom of her now mostly empty cup. _"This girl… I wonder what_ _ **that's**_ _all about?"_

Motoko took another look at the younger teenager and for some reason decided she felt a little spiteful. Truthfully, she had only been in the company of these women for a couple of hours and while mostly they were still strangers to her, she had managed to pick up a wealth of information – both said and unsaid. Most of it concerning how they felt about a certain manager-san that Motoko was married to.

"Well, I'm getting a little tired…" said Motoko with a fake yawn for emphasis. Shinobu barely noticed her.

" _We'll see what she thinks of this…"_

"Maybe I should ask Keitaro-san if he wants to go to bed yet?" she said to no one in particular.

Motoko's speculation was confirmed as she watched the younger Maehara spit-take her punch down the front of her dress and go about five shades deeper of red.

"Ahh… senpai!" she gasped, only to realize what she said a moment later. Quickly her hands flew to her mouth and her eyes began to water with tears. Motoko didn't even have time to say anything before the now distraught Shinobu made her way out of the room, running at top speed.

"That was a little mean, don't you think?" It was Haruka. She had come up behind the two girls while they had been talking and now proceeded to procure a beer for herself off a nearby table.

"Was it?" asked Motoko. She wasn't drunk, at least not enough to lose all self-control, but the bitterness that seeped into her voice was something she couldn't conceal.

Haruka popped the tab off her beer and took a long drink. "I see you've started to figure out the lay of the land then."

Motoko held up her hand. Haruka got the signal and gave her the beer. After a long swig, she returned it to her new "Aunt" and narrowed her eyes as she spoke.

"I just don't understand this!" she glowered as she gazed at her husband. Keitaro was currently engaged in a conversation with the two older girls while the youngest one, the tiny _gaijin_ , was resting on the couch next to him, her face covered with the remains of various snack foods.

Haruka smirked. "You and me both," she said without a hint of irony.

Noticing that Motoko wasn't finding as much humor in the situation as she was, she placed her hand on the girls shoulder.

"It's not that serious. Keitaro's just the only boy these girls know so they're overly friendly with him. That's all." Haruka reasoned that was a _mostly true_ statement.

"That Maehara girl is head over heels," grumbled Motoko as she picked at a fold in her skirt.

"She's also 15…" said Haruka.

"I'm only 17!" replied Motoko, her voice carrying more than she cared.

Haruka took another drink and then turned to the younger woman. "She's out of the strike range."

Realizing that her baseball metaphor was lost on Motoko, Haruka continued, "Just… calm down, Keitaro doesn't see her that way. More like… a younger sister."

Motoko sighed. She knew that Haruka was right, after all Keitaro had said as much himself. He had spent more than a few hours filling her in on the histories and antics of the residents of the Hinata-sou before they had even showed up on the doorstep and while she was willing to concede that the younger girls were no threat, she didn't feel entirely safe in giving up the ground on the older ones…

"What about super-boobs and tsundere-chan?" she asked.

Haruka pondered for a moment, swilling around the beer that remained in her can. She had never heard Motoko be so… pedestrian in her speech before. Evidently the girl's natural temper or the alcohol was loosening her tongue.

"Not as bad as it looks I think. You can keep mega-milk on a tight leash. She's weak to confrontation."

Motoko nodded. For some reason she felt that the words "avoiding confrontation" were not in her vocabulary.

"Also, I don't think she's really serious. This is Keitaro we're talking about after all…"

Motoko raised her eyebrow at the older woman, not entirely sure what she was trying to infer about her husband.

Haruka smiled. "He's too nice of a guy."

" _A little too nice…"_ thought Motoko as she continued to monitor the proximity of Kitsune's breasts to Keitaro's face.

"And Narusegawa-san?" asked Motoko, suspecting she already knew the answer.

"That one's trickier," Haruka said, "Can I be honest with you?"

Motoko didn't say anything, she just nodded.

"She loves him, but she acts like she's five."

Motoko bit her lip. It was as she had expected. She knew the question she had to ask next, but hesitated, her lips not willing to form the words. She felt Haruka's hand gently squeeze her shoulder and she turned her face up to the older woman.

"The only thing you need to worry about is how _you_ feel."

Motoko considered this. She wasn't entirely sure what her feelings were, but she did know that she liked Keitaro, liked him a lot even. He was cute, funny and sweet to her. Of the very few times they had been physically close, she had found herself excited and it left her curious and a bit nervous. Still, they had never so much as kissed…

"I like him," she declared. She wasn't willing to go further than that, at least, not now.

"That's good because you're married to him," joked Haruka, "No refunds."

Motoko tried to laugh, but could only managed a soft sigh. "I just don't think he likes me that much…"

Haruka arched her eye and placed down her now empty beer can. "Why do you think that?" she asked.

Motoko started to blush, her hands gripping onto the material of her skirt.

"Shouldn't guys… you know… shouldn't they always want to do… _that_ ," she mumbled.

Motoko didn't know why, but for some reason she was _certain_ that men spent the majority of their time chasing women for the express purpose of sexual congress. Well, except when it came to Keitaro and her anyway.

Haruka Urashima was a woman who didn't like to get involved in other people's messy lives. There just wasn't any kind of upside to investing yourself in a situation that was going to be gross, messy and ultimately unfulfilling. No offense to Motoko, truly she liked the girl, but if it wasn't for the fact that Keitaro was one of her closest relations, she wouldn't have been involved in this disaster at all. She idly wondered how she had suddenly become responsible for getting her cousin/nephew laid.

" _Damnit I'm going to need another beer_ ," she thought to herself.

"Keitaro's just shy about that stuff," Haruka quipped, "Actually… you're both pretty shy if I remember correctly."

Motoko buried her head in her hands. "I still am…" she said weakly.

Haruka couldn't help but crack a smile at that. Motoko was actually pretty cute when she was being honest. If she kept that up, it'd only be a matter of time before she had Keitaro wrapped around her finger.

"Ah ha!" Haruka loudly snapped her fingers, "I got it!" The proclamation, seemingly out of nowhere, gave Motoko a start.

Haruka was pleased with herself. Truly it was an elegant solution. They had alcohol, they had a hot springs, and they had hormones. All the major ingredients were there for success. She just needed to give a little push...

"You might want to have another drink," Haruka said, then thought better of it, "or two…" she added.

LH-LH-LH

Keitaro Urashima was a man condemned to die by fate and circumstance. He knew this. He accepted it. In fact, the only struggle that remained in his tortured mind was determining the means of his execution and if he would do so with a lurid grin on his face, or running in terror. He ran through the possible scenarios in his head.

" _Option 1,"_ he thought to himself, _"Narusegawa runs in here and kicks my head clean to Tokyo. My body ends up somewhere in the next prefecture."_

If past experience is any indication of future performance, then Keitaro considered this the most likely scenario. It was kind of comforting in both its familiarity as well as its finality.

" _Option 2 – Motoko regains her memory and separates my head from my body. My head ends up somewhere in the next prefecture, but my body is buried here at the onsen."_

At least this one had a happy ending – Motoko would get her memories back and Keitaro would get his just deserts for tricking her into thinking she loved him. And really, he deserved it. What kind of scumbag would tell a girl that had lost her memory that she was in love with him when it wasn't true?

Keitaro Urashima, that's who.

" _Option 3 – Motoko keeps pressing her breasts against me and I die from a cerebral hemmorage as my brain explodes. My last words are, 'Narusegawa… forgive me!'"_

Sadly for Keitaro, this last option was looking to be the most likely and to make matters worse, his own Aunt had sold him down the river by suggesting, nay actually, _demanding_ that he "take responsibility" for this impromptu trip to the hot springs. A normal man, or at least one who hadn't been suffering from post-traumatic stress due to perversion related beatings, would have lept at the chance to bathe with such a gorgeous (and evidently willing) partner as Motoko. Keitaro however, simply wished that his death would be as painless as possible.

"Kei-tar-ro!" giggled a very inebriated Motoko as she leaned in closer to her bashful husband.

"I can't believe you have your own onsen! This is so nice!" she laughed with delight.

Motoko was completely unaware of the effect her musical laughter combined with the proximity of her naked flesh to Keitaro's own, was having on the poor boy next to her. It took a supreme amount of effort, but Keitaro managed to keep his eyes firmly planted directly ahead while he took a sip from one of the cold beers that Haruka had so kindly left him. It did little to settle him down.

"Uh well yeah… I guess so. Truthfully, I don't use it very much…" he said. He left out the part that the reason for this was largely because of his entirely understandable fear of Motoko and her righteous sword of pervert slaying.

Motoko was getting annoyed. For some reason that she couldn't understand, Keitaro kept refusing to look at her. Even when he had carried her out to the hot springs, it was only because she had to forcibly remind him that perhaps _dropping his wife_ wasn't a great idea, that he had even lowered his head from looking at the sky. Even now, he was paying more attention to the beer can in his hand than he was to her and it was quickly destroying whatever confidence she had in her womanly charms.

Frustrated, Motoko decided she had enough of this and reached out, swiping the can from Keitaro's grasp. Predictably, this _did_ get his attention and he turned his head to face her. Without pausing, she raised the cool can to her mouth and chugged the contents, tilting her head back and guzzling with both hands.

"Ahhhhh!" she said as she finished her impressive gulp, a dopey grin on her face. "Cold drinks and hot springs are the best!"

Keitaro, realizing that he was coming dangerously close to staring at Motoko's chest, quickly averted his eyes and started rubbing the back of his head.

"Hah yeah, you're sure right about that Motoko-chan…" he awkwardly chuckled.

" _Close one Keitaro. A few more seconds and you might have... seen her incredibly awesome, gravity defying teenage boobs."_

Keitaro couldn't take it anymore. He had long ago admitted that there was definitely some truth to the claims of his "perversion" and he also knew that his moral fortitude had its limits to what it could endure before he turned into a ball of raging hormones. In her previous state, Motoko would never have given him the opportunity to bump up against those limits, so an order of sorts was more or less maintained. However, this "new" (and incredibly drunk) Motoko next to him wasn't just passively standing by as his inner demons struggled against his conscious, no – she was actively helping the damn things and cheering them on.

" _Maybe a little peek…"_ Keitaro subtly moved his left eye, catching a glimpse of Motoko out of his peripheral vision.

" _Yep, they're awesome. God kill me now before Narusegawa does."_

Motoko's irritability was starting to get the better of her. Before today, the only times her temper had really shown itself was when she was doing physical rehabilitation at the hospital. However, since arriving at the Hinata-sou she had gone through a mixture of emotions – jealousy, petty anger and shame being the chief ones. It had been an emotional rollercoaster of a homecoming and all she wanted right now was to enjoy a nice romantic moment with this man who said he loved her. She couldn't understand what she was doing wrong and it was making her frustrated. That frustration had finally reached its boiling point and started to express itself in an all too familiar way.

"Grr…" she started to growl, not noticing that the inflection in her voice had finally caught Keitaro's attention.

"Urashima!" she barked, "Stop ignoring me!"

Keitaro was shocked, the sound, the tone, the phrases, all of them were so familiar… panic set in as he realized that perhaps he had been correct in one of his previously envisioned disaster scenarios.

"M-M-Motoko?" he stammered in his usual frantic voice.

Motoko's body was going on auto-pilot. Part of her brain wanted to bean him over the head with a stick, but recognizing that all she had in her hand was a beer can, she instead decided to hit him with the impromptu melee weapon. Not wasting any time, she swung her fist (and can) out towards the now shocked Keitaro, only to realize too late that in this particular sitting position she lacked the stability in her lower body to stay upright. Due to this, instead of the can (and fist) connecting with the side of Keitaro's head, she simply spun out and fell face first into the onsen with all the grace of a drunken tortoise.

Motoko couldn't use her legs properly to lift herself out of the water, so she thrashed her arms about in an attempt to turn herself over, but to no avail. The sulphuric water of the natural hot spring was stinging her eyes and nose as she tried to keep her head up and the anger she had felt so strongly before quickly turned into fear.

"Motoko!" gasped Keitaro as he rushed to the side of the flailing woman.

Without hesitating, Keitaro put his arms around Motoko's waist and flipped her over, drawing her close to him in an effort to prop her up. She sputtered, trying to clear the water from her eyes with her now free hands.

"Keitaro…" she whined. She was shaking now in Keitaro's arms and neither one of them knew why.

Keitaro's first reaction was to put some distance between them, after all – he didn't want to get blasted into orbit, but thankfully his rational mind was able to overrule his base fears. Motoko needed him to support her, so he'd do his best to…

" _Oh what was that…"_ he thought as some part of Motoko's body brushed against a certain part of his own anatomy.

Yep, that was right. Motoko needed him. He'd just sit here with her naked body in his arms and cradle her supple bottom on his lap. It was his duty as her husband and primary caretaker to make sure that he enjoyed every minute of this.

He shook his head violently.

" _Think of Naru. Think of Naru. Think of Naru,"_ he mentally chanted to himself as Motoko pressed her wet naked flesh against him, the tips of her breasts grazing against his own chest and sending shivers up his spine.

"Keitaro…" repeated Motoko, this time followed with a heart wrenching sob that finally brought the man back from his hormone induced revelries.

"Motoko-chan…?" he asked softly. Her face was buried in his neck now and she was crying.

"I'm… sorry… I don't know why I did that…" she struggled to say the words.

Without thinking, Keitaro rubbed her back with one of his hands in a soothing motion. As awkward as he found the current situation and as conflicted as he was over his long time feelings for Narusegawa, Keitaro Urashima simply wasn't the kind of man who could be cold to a woman who was crying in his arms.

"You… don't have to look at me," she said softly, her sentence punctuated by a gushing sob.

Keitaro didn't know what to say. He was confused and couldn't understand what Motoko was trying to tell him.

"I'm sorry… Keitaro," she said again.

Keitaro had heard enough of "sorry" from Motoko. As far as he was concerned, she had nothing to apologize for.

"Motoko-chan, you don't have anything to be sorry for…" he said softly to her. His kindness however didn't seem to console her, instead her crying just grew louder and more frequent.

Motoko couldn't stop thinking about the other girls at the Hinata. All of them were beautiful, beautiful _and healthy_. And nearly all of them had some level of affection for her husband, some of them obviously more than she did. It made her feel pathetic and perhaps it was the alcohol speaking, but try as she might, she couldn't supress these turbulent emotions.

"I'm sorry for being broken…" she whispered as she pushed herself off his shoulder, her face coming level with his.

She meant it. She was sorry for having a broken mind that couldn't remember their past. She was sorry for having a broken body that would never be as good as the other girls. She was sorry for having a broken heart that couldn't understand love.

Keitaro could see the anguish in her eyes. Never in his life had he seen someone look so tragic and so beautiful at the same time. Somehow, on some level, he knew that he was responsible for at least a part of this and it the knowledge moved him. It would be wrong to call it pity, it wasn't even just pure sympathy, it was something else – it was understanding.

" _She… really cares about what I think about her? I… mean something to her?"_

As quickly as that thought had unfurled itself in his conscious another one followed it.

" _And all I've done is selfishly think about trying to save my relationship with Naru…"_

Keitaro didn't know exactly what he was feeling right now. He knew he loved Narusegawa, he suspected that unless she did something terrible, he'd _always_ love her, but that understanding was now tempered with a new thought – it was possible for him to love someone else. He didn't know what, if anything, he would do with this new found knowledge, but he did know that he couldn't just turn away Motoko's affection, especially since in her eyes it would be as if her own husband was rejecting her.

" _And I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel something for her…"_

Keitaro moved one of his hands to the side of Motoko's face, his thumb softly brushing away a tear.

"You're not broken," he said to her as he gently rubbed her cheek.

There was a pregnant pause. Neither one of them knew exactly what to say, but their faces were already near. Motoko's eyes glistened in the moonlight and Keitaro couldn't stop looking into them. The mood was charged with emotion, so much so that what happened next was inevitable really. Haruka had called it; all they really needed was a little push…

The kiss wasn't particularly long, or deep, or even objectively "good". That was to be expected; after all, both of them were complete and utter novices. However, it was honest in its yearning. The sweet taste of soft lips combined with excitement and grief perfectly expressed the earnest feelings that the two inexperienced lovers shared at that moment in time.

Motoko broke the kiss first. She was exhausted, both emotionally and physically. She laid her head down gently on Keitaro's shoulder and used her arms to pull herself closer, gently resting on his lap. They staid this way in silence for a long time, both enjoying the reassuring comfort of each other's presence.

" _Wait… is she… snoring?"_

Keitaro closed his eyes and tried to mentally calculate the odds of getting a drunken and naked woman back to his room without being spotted by another resident.

LH-LH-LH

Naru Narusegawa huddled under her blankets, her precious Liddo-kun doll clutched fiercely in her arms. She had tried so hard to be nice to Keitaro tonight, but she just couldn't manage it. Every time she went to open her mouth, she found herself shutting it out of embarrassment. Every time she wanted to move closer to him, she found herself shaking in fear. She didn't understand how things had gone so terribly wrong and she didn't understand why she seemed to be the only one to care.

" _Why is everyone pretending everything is okay? How can they do that! Motoko doesn't even love him…"_

Keitaro had confessed to her. He had told her that he loved her. When he had first said those words it had made her heart leap with joy, but then her old familiar demons of fear and self-doubt took root in her heart and she had left without responding to his feelings. She knew it had been a mistake, and really she had every intention of correcting it, but before she could, _this disaster_ happened.

Now, what could she do? Could she go to Keitaro and tell him that she loved him? Even if she did, would it matter? She tried desperately to banish the idea that just below her the man that she loved was probably having sex with another woman. It made her sick to her stomach.

Keitaro had been chasing after her for almost two years now and somewhere along the way his dreams had become hers as well. They would both get into Todai together, walking hand and hand under the red arch. They would spend afternoons eating box lunches on the grounds and laughing arm in arm. They'd fall in love. They'd have a student wedding. They'd live happily ever after.

She never meant to have this this dream. It had been his first, but now that she had let it into her heart, she found that she didn't want to give it up.

"Keitaro… why?" she cried to herself in the darkness.

No one answered.

LH-LH-LH

Six year old Motoko Aoyama fiddled with the tiny _bokken_ in her hands. It had originally belonged to her big sister and it still had Tsuruko's name written on the handle. Motoko didn't bother to write her own on it, or to try and erase Tsuruko's, not because she didn't consider it hers, but because having Tsuruko's sword was basically the best thing ever.

Her sister, after all, was totally amazing.

"Even in your dreams, you still cling to the sword?" asked a voice from behind her.

Motoko spun around, _bokken_ at the ready.

"Who was that?"she called out into the darkness.

She had thought for some reason that she was back home, in the old practice hall at the dojo with the other children, but now that she looked, she realized that she was someplace else. Someplace that she didn't like going to, at least, not since…

 _Boom-boom-boom_

Motoko took a step back, the sound, the beat, it was familiar.

 _Boom-boom-boom_

Softly, the lilting of the _sho_ and _hichiriki_ pipes began to rise over the rhythmic pounding of the _taiko_. She recognized the tune before the _biwa_ began to pluck out its notes.

"Mama?" she asked.

Another sound joined the dream performers, it too was familiar. Motoko instantly recognized the course rustling of brass bells being shook vibrantly in time to the _gagaku_. She knew this song. She knew this _Kagura_. She remembered her mother dancing it…

Her eyes strained against the dimness of the hall. She could see no performers. She could see no dancers. The music never stopped.

"Motoko…" came the voice again.

Motoko threw down her _bokken_ and fell to her knees.

"Mama! Why?" she cried into the darkness.

No one answered.

Authors Note:

This chapter was actually intended to be part of Chapter 4. Thematically I wanted all of the "day's events" to be in the same chapter, but it just seemed a little long (it would have been twice the normal length). However, since Chapter 4 got such a huge response from people, and since I had all the ideas ready to go, it was a relatively trivial thing to sit down and write them up.

I really want to thank everyone who provided feedback over the last couple of chapters, it's really helped me focus in on a couple of areas that I think I otherwise would have been complacent in. Also, it's given me a couple of challenges that I want to see if I can carry through (but I can't discuss them because I don't want to ruin plot points!)

Also, as you may have noticed, I am not going to go with the "Naru is a complete psycho" characterization. In fact, I want to try and keep people as close to their canonical portrayals as possible, and as much as people might hate Naru for pounding on Keitaro, the truth is – that girl loves him, she's just retarded. Rest assured, this is a Motoko/Keitaro story, but if I can make you feel bad for Naru, then I will try!

Once again, thank you guys (and girls) for all the wonderful feedback, reviews and favorites (wow!) that this story has gotten. It's really encouraged me to put a lot of time into making sure that these chapters keep coming out and given me plenty to think about.

Cheers,

QC


	6. Chapter 6

Motoko Urashima stared the unfamiliar ceiling and wondered why her head was pounding like someone had driven over it with a truck. Her memory, already pretty much shot to hell, was even more confused than usual and she vaguely recalled an impromptu welcome home party, a fair bit of drinking and then…

" _Oh no, I didn't…"_

Of course, she knew deep inside, that she actually _had._ Despite the 10 alarm hangover brewing in her head, she managed to work through a series of logical conclusions. She had gotten wasted, perhaps not for the first time, but definitely for the first time that she could recall. She had bathed with her new "husband" in the Hinata's hot springs and once again, like she had at their initial meeting, made a complete emotional mess of herself. The only upside that she could recall was that single kiss…

She felt a warmth flow through her face as she recalled the tender moment when their lips had met and then the long and lingering embrace that followed, their bodies closely pressed together and warmed not just by the springs water. The memory was decidedly pleasant and as she recalled the sensation of their naked bodies intermingled in that tender moment another feeling started to well up inside her. Slowly her hand began to snake down her chest and towards her stomach, only to have her progress halted by the waistband of her panties.

" _Panties. I'm wearing…"_

She froze.

Motoko's experience at romance, love and frankly, lust, was purely a theoretical thing that existed mostly in her imagination and was fuelled more by her devotion to romance novels than any sort of real life experience. The _idea_ of having a sexy tryst in a hot spring was one that she was willing to explore, perhaps even in some great amount of detail, but the reality of the fact that she had actually _had_ one, and then been carried naked, back to a bed and even _dressed_ in the most intimate of ways you can dress a young woman, was something her brain wasn't ready to process and as such it completely shut down as her inner self debated between regretting that she couldn't remember what had happened and wishing that she would _never_ remember what had happened.

" _Keitaro-san must think I'm insane. Why did I let Haruka-san talk me into doing something like that?"_

As tempting as it was for her to blame the indiscretion on Haruka, Motoko knew that the older woman was just trying to help her, at least in her own incredibly blunt way. The root of the problem was really Motoko herself. She had an incredibly low sense of self-esteem when it came to the perception of herself as a woman. She was inexperienced at romance, useless at seduction and had a body that she felt was too muscular and lanky, with more angles than curves. And of course, that was all before you factored in the part about her being confined to a wheelchair or crutches just to move around.

" _Wheelchair… where is it?"_

Motoko pushed herself up in the bed by her elbows; it was a recent purchase since it would make it easier for her to get into and out of as opposed to a futon. At least, that was the theory considering she couldn't currently place where her wheelchair was. This alone, was troubling, but a slight pressure in her lower extremities was making it more of a concern than it would perhaps otherwise be. It'd been weeks since she last had an "accident" at the hospital, and she was hoping to keep that streak going.

"Hello? Keitaro-san? Help please!" she called out, hoping that her husband was nearby.

She heard a slight padding of footsteps coming down the hall and turned her head.

"Keitaro-" she began, only to be faced with the visage of another of the dorms residents.

"Ah… Motoko-chan?" asked Kitsune Konno as she slid back the rolling door to the manager's room.

Motoko was somewhat relieved. At least she wasn't alone and immobile in this strange place.

"Konno-san? Is my husband nearby?" she asked with a slight hint of urgency.

Kitsune wore a strange expression on her face, but it was quickly replaced by her normal lackadaisical smile. "Keitaro-kun had to go to town, but since I'm here pretty much all day and in the room next to you…"

Mitsune "Kitsune" Konno wasn't normally this helpful. That's not to say that she didn't particularly care for Motoko, quite the contrary, she had considered the stern swordswoman to be if not a good friend, then at least a fellow resident and compatriot. However, her primary motivation for making herself "available" to watch over Motoko while Keitaro did his normal errands was obviously less than altruistic. To put it bluntly, she hoped to pump the befuddled girl for information. Information that she would likely use in less than honourable, ultimately but rent reducing, ways.

Motoko cleared her throat. "I can't seem to find my wheelchair and I have… urgent need," the emphasis she put on the word "need" with the pained expression on her face made it clear to Kitsune the implications.

"Ah! I see… well… where did you last see it?" Kitsune asked with an awkward expression.

Motoko looked abashed and her face flushed with shame.

"Last night… we were quite… inebriated. In the hot spring."

Despite not "knowing" Kitsune for very long, the lurid smile that Motoko received from the older girl was more or less expected.

Kitsune put the back of her hand to her mouth. "Ohohohohoho! What were you two getting up to last night?"

"Konno-san, _please_!" begged Motoko as she held her stomach.

"Alright! Alright!" Kitsune said as she raised her hands, "Don't go anywhere…"

Motoko shot her a glare.

"Um… I mean, don't move."

The glare intensified.

"I'll be right back!" yipped the fox as she quickly retreated from the room.

Thankfully it didn't take long for her to reappear with the aforementioned wheelchair and Motoko was quickly able to find relief with a minimal amount of fussing. When she had finished her business and returned to the hall, she was somewhat surprised to find Kitsune still loitering around, albeit from a "respectable" distance.

"So… do you need me to help you with anything? Like pants or something?" Kitsune asked, seemingly with an uncharacteristic hint of embarrassment.

Motoko was still clad only in a pair of plain white panties and a thin t-shirt that she suspected Keitaro had dressed her in last night. Normally she could handle dressing herself, but unfortunately she hadn't really had a chance to set up her room appropriately for her to do so and so she thought she might actually need some assistance in this matter.

"You can help me with my legs," she said as she wheeled past the other woman and back into her room.

"Legs?" puzzled Kitsune as she followed after her.

Motoko had already wheeled over to where her "luggage" from her hospital stay had ended up. Bending over quickly she started to rummage through one of the bags and produced two strange contraptions made of straps and gleaming metal.

"I didn't wear these yesterday, not really much use for it just riding a train…" she said as she held one of the devices up to Kitsune.

"I'm not good at putting them on by myself yet, so if you can just help me raise my leg and slide it under, that'd be appreciated."

Kitsune looked at the device that Motoko had handed her. It didn't take a genius to see that it was some type of leg-brace, although it was lighter and sleeker than anything she had seen in movies or pictures – not that either of these were great sources for this kind of information. Thankfully, they were rather straightforward in their design and she only needed a bare minimum of instruction from Motoko to get them situated correctly.

"Now what?" she asked the younger girl.

Motoko pulled her legs back up into a sitting position and then started wheeling herself across the room.

"Nothing really, I should be able to manage from here…" she said as she reached for a pair of crutches that were leaning in the corner.

They were designed specifically for the type of work that Motoko had in mind, being designed not to fit under the crook of your arm, but acting more like canes that were stabilized by being attached to your forearm, but with a traditional style handle to hold on to.

Kitsune watched with a slight degree of apprehension as Motoko planted her two crutches on the ground in front of her and leaned forward. Motoko made a slight jerking motion with her body as she lurched forward, only to quickly catch herself and stand upright. Kitsune, almost involuntarily, let out a low whistle that caught the raven haired girls attention.

"That just got real," she said in a half whisper that Motoko obviously heard.

"Sorry!" she continued, "I just meant… well, I'm not used to seeing you like this I guess."

Motoko raised her eyebrow and then pivoted on her crutches to stand in front of her closet, bracing herself slightly as she flung open one of the doors.

"How _are_ you used to seeing me?" asked Motoko, her voice carrying a slight undertone of menace.

Kitsune gave an awkward smile. She wasn't used to being on the back-foot like this and was cautious about how to proceed. Motoko sensed her hesitation and continued talking.

"Don't worry, I'm not offended… not really," she said as she examined the contents of the closet.

"After all, this is the only way I ever remember being," she said plainly.

Kitsune walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. "Yeah… that's taking some getting used to as well. I guess if I had to describe you, I'd say – serious, traditional and tough."

Motoko screwed up her face as she peered deeper into the disappointment that was her closet.

"And evidently terrible at fashion as well," she said as she moved to the side, revealing row after row of her trademarked _hakuma_ pants and martial artist _gi_ tops.

Kitsune chortled to herself. "Well that's true. Heck that one time that Keitaro made you wear a dress…"

Motoko turned her head and stared at Kitsune. This was something new, some new piece of information about her relationship with Keitaro that she hadn't been privy to. She was keenly interested.

"Wait? Keitaro-san made me wear a dress?" she asked, her voice deep with curiosity.

Kitsune grinned. "Yeah it was pretty funny… you had challenged him to a duel and he won…"

Motoko blinked. "A duel? I challenged him to a duel? What for?"

Kitsune scratched her head. Haruka had warned them all about getting too far into discussing the details of Keitaro and Motoko's relationship and while she didn't think anything _bad_ could happen by letting a few pieces of information slip, at the same time she didn't want to risk Haruka's wrath. The woman had a mean streak a mile long. The cunning fox decided that at least _this time_ she'd be better served by caution.

"You know, I can't remember exactly why… this was a while ago, shortly after he came here."

Motoko was about to interrupt, but Kitsune continued.

"Anyway…" she barged ahead, "It was suggested that you attempt to be more 'feminine' as a result. We had a good time dressing you up. I think Shinobu-chan almost went hoarse shouting 'Kawaii-des!'"

"Does Keitaro-san like feminine girls?" Motoko asked. It was the obvious question, but she instantly regretted asking it. She was sure that demonstrating any sense of insecurity in front of the woman she had mentally designated as _milk-chan_ was only going to come back to haunt her.

Kitsune gave Motoko a lopsided grin. "I guess he does. By the way, bottom drawer in the bureau is what you're looking for."

Motoko wobbled over to the dresser and opened the drawer; she was pleased to find that it contained an assortment of more casual clothing. She quickly selected a pair of denim shorts that she could pull up over her braces.

"How did you?" she started to ask.

Kitsune ventured a partial truth, "I helped Haruka set up the room…"

Of course, the real truth was more complicated than that, but if Motoko hadn't figured out Kitsune's penchant for spying and utter disregard for personal space, then she wasn't going to go out of her way to give her the heads up.

"Well, then maybe you can answer me another question…" said Motoko as she continued rummage through the drawers, eventually holding up a single white article of clothing.

"Why do I only have one bra?" She looked down at her own chest, barely constrained by the thin t-shirt she was wearing.

"I'm not particularly small down there…"

Kitsune rolled her eyes. This was just getting better and better.

"Heh, well you see, Keitaro bought you that bra for Christmas…" Kitsune was practically rubbing her hands in glee now.

"I guess you must really like it or something…" she leered at the younger woman and got the appropriate response.

"It's…not like that…" stammered Motoko, "I mean I don't know, but I'm sure…" she blushed.

Kitsune howled in laughter.

Motoko clammed up. "You're teasing me," she said softly.

Kitsune's giggling tapered off. "Only a little bit. Honestly, the truth is far weirder. You actually used to tie your tits down with bandages. Like you never heard of a sports bra or something…"

Motoko rolled her eyes and started shucking off her shirt. As she wiggled her way into her sole brassiere, she started wondering what the hell was wrong with _that_ _girl_. This was what she had started calling herself, or at least the self that existed prior to her accident. _That girl_ , the one that was her, but that she didn't know. It seemed like with every new piece of information she learned the portrait of her former self just got stranger and more distorted. Surely, no one could possibly be _that_ weird.

Replacing her shirt, Motoko hobbled back over to her wheelchair and stowed her crutches. Her head was still pounding, the small time she'd spent on her crutches had already made her sore and she was hungry. All things considered, it was a pretty poor way to start off her first full day "back home". She ruefully considered that at least it couldn't get much worse.

"Oh, before I forget," said Kitsune as she motioned to a stack of papers on a low table, "One of the girls from your school, Onoue-chan, I think? She dropped those off for you."

Motoko raised an eyebrow, not quite understanding what Kitsune was getting at.

"And that's…?" she asked.

The fox just grinned.

"It's your homework of course!"

LH-LH-LH

Keitaro leaned back, letting the lush couch absorb his tired body. He had never had the opportunity to tell the full story in such detail before and he had found the experience rather draining.

"And that's pretty much where we are today…" he said by way of denouement, his hands instinctively going to his face to readjust his glasses.

The woman across from him, one Suika Morita, doctor of psychiatry from the prestigious University of Tokyo, nodded her head and folded her hands across her lap. She was considering her next words with the duty of care that they demanded.

"Urashima-san, I believe I need to speak to your wife – sooner rather than later," she said plainly.

Keitaro cleared his eyes and leaned forward, the couch struggling to suck him back in.

"You're not… going to tell her, are you? You don't think that's a good…" he was cut off.

"No, at least not at first, but I need to talk to her and ask her some questions. Check her cognitive abilities, make some simple observations. When we do tell her, it will be hopefully further down the road and we'll make sure she's supported by people who care about her."

Keitaro let out a deep sigh. He had to admit, Morita Sensai was _good_. She had a way of calming even Keitaro's frazzled nerves with the way she spoke, it was a mixture of calm confidence and obvious care that resonated with Keitaro's own feelings on the matter. In fact he was so impressed with the older woman that he ventured to ask a question of his own that had been heavily on his mind, particularly since last night…

"Excuse me Morita Sensei," he began, his voice quaking with nervousness. The kindly psychiatrist leaned forward on her desk and smiled, trying to sooth the young man.

"You see… Motoko-chan has expressed certain _feelings_ for me that seem to be… how do I say this…" Keitaro floundered around like a fish out of water as he searched for a non-perverted way to state his concern.

"Ah… romantic feelings," he decided.

Morita simply raised her eyebrow quizzically. She had learned long ago to not speaking sometimes did more to encourage nervous people to talk than trying to coax them. A few moments passed before Keitaro found his nerve and began to talk about.

"Anyway, prior to her accident she didn't… you know. About me anyway." Keitaro blew out a deep sigh, grateful the exertion was over.

"How is this exactly a problem Urashima-san? People's relationships evolve all the time… just because Motoko-san has lost her previous memories, doesn't mean that she cannot make new ones."

Keitaro felt there was some logic to that statement, but he also didn't think that Morita Sensei fully understood the depths of his concern about the current situation. He reached deep into himself and gathered his courage for another round of exposition.

"Well…" he began haltingly, "She seems to want to do things that couples do. Married couples."

Morita Sensei nodded sagely and then leaned closer to Keitaro, the young man prepared himself to receive her wisdom.

"I can't help you," she stated bluntly.

"What?!" Keitaro was so shocked he nearly spit in her face. How could this be? She was a psychiatrist right, couldn't she at least give him some advice on what was the correct thing to do? At least for Motoko's sake?

"That is that and this is this," she merely stated as she leaned back in her chair, her smile still plastered on her face.

Keitaro wasn't having it. The events of last night and his own reaction to the physical closeness of Motoko's body proved to him that he NEEDED an answer to this question.

"But it's wrong… isn't it?" he asked.

"You're married aren't you?" retorted Morita.

"Yes but…" Keitaro started to say, only to be cut off.

"Urashima-san, the state of your marriage, your feelings about it, your romantic feelings for each other, that's up to you to decide. You said Motoko already understands that your marriage was arranged, correct?"

Keitaro nodded. It was true, even if Motoko didn't understand exactly _why_ the marriage was arranged, she certainly did know that neither of them had chosen it for themselves.

"Then it seems to me that since she isn't asking for a divorce or otherwise trying to avoid you, that she may actually, and I understand that this may be a shock to you," the woman let out a low, throaty chuckle, "…but she may not be entirely opposed to the arrangement"

Keitaro blinked. "But before the accident she wasn't… you know." His voice trailed off into nothing as he couldn't bring himself to say, _"in love with me."_

"Even if she hadn't lost her memories Keitaro, you'd still be married, and you'd still need to work things out for yourselves about this." Morita pinched the bridge of her nose and put forth a serious demeanour.

"I know you're concerned about the suicide attempt, but I wouldn't consider that a rejection of you. From what you've told me I'd say her reaction was more akin to grief over her loss as well as guilt over hurting her friends."

"H-hurting her f-friends?" Keitaro stammered.

"You and this…" Morita looked down at her notes, "Narusegawa girl."

Keitaro was baffled. He couldn't understand what Morita was trying to get at and the look of confusion on his face was evident. The older woman tried to elaborate.

"You and this girl are in some sort of relationship are you not?" Morita asked. Keitaro could almost feel her words forming into a lance that pierced his heart.

"Ah… I wouldn't say that… exactly…" he muttered, feeling even more despondent than usual.

Morita studied the shy young man across from her. Years of experience had lent her the ability to more or less read people like a book, after all most people had problems that were incredibly similar to one another and once you had dealt with a few, it became fairly easy to recognize them when they cropped up again, even if the circumstances were _slightly_ different. It was times like these that she simply wanted to reach across her desk and start shaking people, but alas she had the reputation of her office and Todai to think of.

"Urashima-san, you didn't come to me for relationship advice, but I can give you some anyway – You need to figure out your own feelings and be honest to them. That's all anyone can do."

Keitaro nodded. It sounded like reasonable advice, and indeed for most people it probably would be.

Unfortunately, for the residents of the Hinata-sou, being honest about feelings wasn't something that happened very often, if at all.

LH-LH-LH

"That's cute Motoko-senpai!" gushed Shinobu as she looked at the colourful creations that littered the kitchen table.

Motoko had originally intended to study, but found it hard going. After all she had seemingly forgotten a variety of useful things such as books she had read, the entirety of Japanese history, geography and any math formula above basic algebra. After a couple of hours she had become fairly despondent over the entire ordeal and had gone into a deep funk. Her fingers, seemingly never able to be idle, had automatically reached for the paper she had brought to do her homework on and had started folding. At first it was cranes, then flowers, followed by butterflies, whales, fish, frogs and ultimately the small cat that the Maehara girl was fawning over.

Motoko scooped up the paper cranes and placed them inside her textbook. She'd save them for later. Then she presented the rest of her creations to the younger girl.

"You can have them if you want," she said with a smile.

"R-really?" said Shinobu as her hand reached out for one of the flowers. She brought it up to her face and tried to figure out exactly how Motoko had managed to fold it into such a shape.

"I never knew you could do this…" she said softly as she marvelled at the paper creation.

Now it was Motoko's turn to be surprised. Keitaro had never made any particular comment about her origami, but then again perhaps Motoko had never demonstrated such a wide variety of skill before. It was worth investigating.

"I didn't know I could do it either. I was in the hospital one day and started folding… cranes at first, you know for a _Senbazuru_ , and then I just started… making other things."

She idly prodded one of her creations, a whale by the looks of it, with her finger and closed her eyes only to hear a gasp from the young girl next to her.

"W-what?! What was that?!" Shinobu exclaimed, bringing her arms up to her chest in surprise.

"What was what?" called out Keitaro from behind the pair. He had just entered the kitchen and was struggling with an assortment of plastic shopping bags.

Shinobu pointed her finger at the table and began to yammer, "It moved! The whale it moved! It swam across the table!"

Both Motoko and Keitaro locked eyes on the table, then on Shinobu and then back to the table, eventually resting their gaze on the increasingly embarrassed young woman.

"Uh… Shinobu-chan, are you alright?" asked Keitaro. "Do you want me to cook dinner tonight?"

Shinobu was mortified. Obviously paper whales didn't swim across tables, even if her eyes told them they did and regardless saying such stupid and childish things in front of her senpai was simply just not something she should have done. As was often the case when Shinobu was faced with the uncomfortable reality of acting her age in front of Keitaro, she simply raised her hands to her head and ran from the room, calling out behind her "I'vegottagodosomething!" a tiny trail of tears, sparkling in her wake.

Keitaro, completely used to Shinobu's strange moods by now merely shrugged it off. Quickly he placed all the grocery bags down on the kitchen counter and then sauntered over to the table to examine Motoko's handiwork.

"Oh wow, those are pretty good," he said with a smile.

Motoko shrugged her shoulders and sighed. "Truthfully I was supposed to be catching up on my school work, but I ended up doing this instead."

Keitaro slapped his forehead. "Sorry! I completely forgot… I take it you don't remember much of the semester then?"

It was a reasonable question in Keitaro's mind and Motoko took it as such. After all, she had demonstrated a knack for remembering certain things such as an impressive array of _kanji_ and some basic math formulas. To put it simply, she wouldn't know what she didn't know when it came to school until she had tried. Unfortunately, after having tried, she found herself somewhat… lacking.

"Hardly anything it seems," she said sadly. "I don't know if I'll be able to graduate… although it's somewhat sad considering this is my final year."

Keitaro winced. He considered that perhaps _now_ wasn't the right time to bring up that previously Motoko had expressed interest in studying to take the Todai entrance exam. If what she had said about her current scholastic progress held true, it'd be unlikely that she could even attend a _juku_ to study properly, let alone have a shot in hell of passing the tortuous examination process.

" _Still, that doesn't mean that she can't graduate high school. I know from experience that high school is mostly memorization, even a moron like me can get good grades if you study enough."_

Absently, Keitaro placed a hand on Motoko's shoulder; he didn't notice the slight blush that came to her face.

"Don't worry Motoko-chan, I'll help you study so that you can graduate and we'll go speak to the school principal on Monday to explain your situation…"

Keitaro's face clouded up for a moment.

"Keitaro-san, what is it?" asked Motoko.

Keitaro shook his head, "Oh I was just wondering if I'm your guardian or not… you know, because of the marriage."

Motoko laughed at the improbably weird way her husband's mind worked.

"You're strange," she proclaimed directly to Keitaro's face.

"And no, you're not. I'm emancipated," she declared. Seeing the question on Keitaro's face, she continued, "Tsuruko oneesan told me – the state automatically emancipates married minors."

Keitaro removed his hand from Motoko's shoulder and sat down in a chair to face her.

"I suppose that means that if you don't want to go to school, then you don't have to?" he asked.

A brief flash of something crossed Motoko's face, Keitaro couldn't make out the expression, but he could see that her mouth grew narrow as she considered something.

"Do you wish for me to stop attending school, husband?" she asked in a distant voice.

Keitaro raised his hands in protest, "No! Not at all!" he said hurriedly.

"I was just saying… you can do what you want, that's all. Either way I would support you…" he trailed off.

The tension in Motoko's face seemed to ease. If her husband had wanted her to abandon her studies, then she would do so, after all a married woman didn't have much need for them, particularly one in her situation who would almost certainly not be going on to University. However, she found herself secretly relieved that Keitaro hadn't required such a thing of her.

" _But then again… when has Keitaro-san ever demanded something of me?"_ she asked herself, only to add, _"Even when I wish he would…"_

That last thought had brought a familiar flush and tingle to her cheeks, particularly as she remembered the events of last night. Bravely, Motoko ventured to change the subject.

"Keitaro-san…" she said softly, "Thank you for taking care of me last night and sorry for being so…"

Truthfully, she hadn't wanted to finish that sentence so she was relieved when Keitaro interjected.

"Don't worry Motoko-chan!" he said with his usual disarming smile, the one that made Motoko feel especially good.

"It was a pretty emotional night, wasn't it?"

Try as he might, Keitaro's mind couldn't avoid focusing on that short, but incredibly nice kiss that Motoko had given him. It had just now occurred to him that it was probably the nicest kiss any girl had ever given him, even in his imagination.

Motoko nodded, her blush deepening and she recalled bits and fragments of their night together.

"You are always so kind to me…" whispered Motoko shyly.

"I was happy…" she added in a voice so soft that Keitaro couldn't entirely make it out.

Keitaro's mind recalled his recent conversation with Morita Sensei and he felt somewhat emboldened by Motoko's admission. Maybe, he reasoned, it was worth investigating their feelings together. He considered this for a moment and then began to move his lips to speak, only to be interrupted by the sound of someone clearing their throat. Panic began to set in as he turned his head and began to realize who had been watching him…

"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" said Naru Narusegawa with a voice so frigid that it could super-cool an arctic glacier.

LH-LH-LH

Tsuruko passed under the ancient red _torii_ that marked the beginning of the grounds for the _Kansai Onmyodo Association_. Despite the fact that she had visited the compound many times over the years she never quite got used to the feeling of the protective wards "snapping" into place around her as she crossed the magical threshold and the sensation gave her a heady rush as she strolled down the well-worn cobbled path.

Her presence was instantly noted by several adepts milling around the main courtyard, but they paid her no mind. Her outfit, the red and white _hakuma_ of the Shinmei-ryū usually marked her as strange or at least a bit unusual in the modern world. Here, however, it was a sight that had been seen on a daily basis for hundreds of years and no one paid her or her enormous sword any particular mind.

" _He should have sensed me before I even hit the main gate. I suppose I shall just wait here in the garden until he is free."_

Tsuruko took a seat on a long bench and admired the well-kept grounds. While it wasn't particularly unusual for her to visit this sect, her married life meant that she usually only did so as part of a contract or particular favour and not simply out of leisure as she used to do when she was younger. Still, this visit was neither and she had mostly arrived without much thought to announcing to anyone that she would even be present today. Of course, for the person she wanted to meet, this would pose little challenge.

"Hello Tsuruko-chan," came the calm voice behind her – a deep baritone that belied the tall and lithe frame of the man it belonged to.

Tsuruko rose and bowed deeply with great respect, for she was in the presence of not only a master of her schools style, but perhaps the greatest living master in the entire world.

"Uncle Eishun," she spoke in greeting.

Many years ago, the man now known as Eishun Konoe had been known as Eishun Aoyama and had fought in a brutal magical war that had been hidden mostly from the mortal world. Together with his companions, the _Crimson Wing_ , they had emerged as victorious heroes only to be faced with a world in dire need of not just strength of arms, but of healing as well. It was as such that he now found himself in his current position as the Chief of the _Kansai Onmyodo Association_ and working tirelessly to provide safety and security to those in need.

Eishun eyed Tsuruko warily. He had some idea of why she was here, but not yet as to what he would do. He was of half a mind to just send her away; it would be the simplest answer to a troublesome problem. However, Tsuruko was family and truthfully, he was always fond of her. The dour faced girl that he had met all those years ago had been burdened with an inordinate amount of troubles and it had been his wish for her to find her happiness. He had thought at least, she had for a while.

"Follow me," he said as he led her deeper into the gardens and away from the prying eyes and ears of the other devotees. The walked for several minutes, eventually arriving at a small copse of trees surrounding a tiny monument, one that bore some small significance at least to the Aoyama family.

Tsuruko sucked in her breath, whistling through her teeth. She wasn't surprised, not in the least, but it always unnerved her just how easily Eishun had always been able to read her thoughts and heart.

Settling himself down on a bench, Eishun smoothed out his robes and adjusted his glasses. Tsuruko amused herself by noting that he shared a trait with Motoko's new husband – a seemingly innocent and hapless face. However, in Eishun's case, if you looked into his eyes, you would see that his appearance only masked the world weary soul of a man that had seen and fought far too much evil. Tsuruko idly thought that she wished Keitaro would never have eyes like that.

"Why?" he said simply to Tsuruko, not caring to waste words on elaborating what was already understood between them.

"I think it's the only way to heal her," Tsuruko responded. Her voice was twinged with sadness.

Eishun scratched the stubble on his chin as he pondered something.

"This may sound cold Tsuruko-chan, but…" he paused for a moment before continuing, "Is it really the right thing to heal her? Can't she live out a life of some happiness the way she is?"

Tsuruko hung her head. Eishun wasn't wrong, there was technically nothing preventing Motoko from finding her happiness, in fact she had marvelled at the fact that her own accursed meddling had seemingly provided Motoko with perhaps the one person in the world that could almost guarantee it. Still, there was more to it than just that – there were other things, things that Tsuruko had done to Motoko that she wished to undo, things that her heart wouldn't let her forget.

"I've wronged her," Tsuruko stated simply. "I need to make amends…" her voice was starting to crack now.

Eishun wanted to reach out and grasp his niece, but he refrained. He knew that this had been a long time in coming for Tsuruko, so he simply waited with patience as she continued.

"I've lied to her for so long and now… I can't even tell her the truth because it would be meaningless." She sucked in a long breath of air and stared up at the sky, tears were now streaming down her face.

"Is it because she doesn't remember?" Eishun asked softly.

Tsuruko nodded in agreement. "We need to unseal her memories… and I need to face her."

"Tsuruko-chan, if we do this then she will be aware of her true nature. Even if you don't say anything, eventually she will come to realize the truth…"

Tsuruko wiped away some tears with the back of her hand and calmed herself as best she could.

"I know," she said with some measure of resolve.

"It could be dangerous for her…" the older swordsman cautioned.

"Even if she hates me, I won't fail her," she replied. There was a hint of steel in those words that put Eishun at ease.

"Well, then, let's pray together here and ask for assistance," he stated as he gathered up his robes and walked the few feet to the marker by the trees. Tsuruko joined him at his side and together they both clapped their hands.

Tsuruko looked down at the well-worn words engraved in the simple bronze plaque attached to the grave. She had chosen them herself when she was only 19. They were simple, and she knew them by heart.

" _In memory of Kyōsuke and Nadoka Aoyama, for their valiant defence of these grounds and of their sacrifice and love for their daughter Tsuruko and grand-daughter Motoko."_

LH-LH-LH

Authors Note:

Well, yeah, so major plot development time here huh? Well, now we have an alt-canon reason for why Tsuruko seems to be so intent on butting into Motoko's life all the time, hmm? Still, there are many questions left (intentionally, for now) unresolved.

Also, some people will notice the slight Negima! crossover here. Don't worry, the story isn't going to go off the rails. At the most I will only be referencing characters and lore that are directly related to the Shinmei-ryū or Aoyama family in general, as this is still Motoko's (and by extension Tsuruko's) story. I guess for people who only have read Love Hina, they might not be aware of the fact that not only are there male practitioners of Shinmei-ryū, but as in the case of Eishun, they are actually quite bad ass and while I believe it isn't explicitly stated, it is noted that Eishun married into the Konoe family and adopted his wife's surname, with hints of the fact that he is indeed, an Aoyama (of course, his mastery of Shinmei-ryū and the family only techniques leaves little doubt to that).

Anyway, once again thank you everyone who has reviewed and favorited this story. The feedback in particular has been valuable with helping me focus and hopefully continue (?) to deliver a top-notch story here. Seriously, I find it very valuable.

Also, a "no-prize" goes to anyone who can guess what Motoko's true nature is. There's a very slight hint in this chapter as to what it is if you are familiar with a particular legendary figure in Japanese history that was known for occultism.

Thanks,

QC


	7. Chapter 7

Naru Narusegawa silently stalked the halls of Hinata-sou, lost in her own thoughts. The Hinata was a large, ancient building, so it was easy for someone to disappear in it if they wanted to, and as such Naru had been able to spend the majority of the day alone. It was a self-imposed exile due to her conflicted feelings over the circumstances surrounding the man she loved and his "new wife".

Yes, Naru could finally admit to herself that she loved Keitaro and wanted desperately to be with him, but she didn't know what, if anything, she could do about it. Originally when Tsuruko had forced Motoko and Keitaro into what Naru still considered a "sham" marriage, she had thought that the situation, as frustrating as it was, would ultimately be resolved quickly. After all, neither of the two really wanted to be married to each other. Motoko certainly had never expressed any sort of romantic feelings for Keitaro and Keitaro himself had already confessed his love to Naru…

Given this, maybe she shouldn't have been so angry that night? Perhaps she shouldn't have yelled so loudly, and certainly she regretted striking Motoko as harshly as she had, but at the time she was furious and emotionally distraught. After all, what woman who lost the love of their life wouldn't be? Sadly, it was only when Keitaro seemed to be taken away from her that she found the strength to admit her own feelings. Seeing him married to Motoko brought about not only this startling revelation, but a profound sense of hurt and pain that even now, weeks later, she couldn't fully express.

" _What can I do?"_ she asked herself as her slippered feet padded along the hall.

" _I almost lost it last night… if Kitsune hadn't been there…_ "

Naru involuntarily shuddered at the thought. Haruka had made it clear that in no uncertain terms was she to have another outburst like that in the presence of Motoko, otherwise the fiery brunette might find herself looking for another address.

"Keitaro wouldn't do that to me…" she muttered under her breath. Deep down inside she still believed that despite how things had turned out, that Keitaro still loved _her_. She held on to that thought as desperately as she could.

Finally she arrived at her destination just as her stomach growled. She had skipped breakfast, so she was hoping that if Shinobu hadn't left an extra plate for her, that there would at least be something she could forage for in the kitchen. Her hand went out and opened the door and she crept in cautiously, only to hear the sound of conversation from inside. It was clear who it was.

"Don't worry Motoko-chan," said Keitaro. "It was a pretty emotional night, wasn't it?"

This piqued Naru's curiosity. She remembered sitting alone in her room last night wondering what the two had gotten up to, crying about what she imagined they _were_ doing.

"You are always so kind to me…" whispered Motoko in a voice that could just barely be heard. She sounded shy and with an undertone of sweetness that made Naru's stomach churn.

" _Great, I wanted to get something to eat, but now all I want to do is throw up."_

Naru, deciding that she had reached her limit for eavesdropping, loudly cleared her throat and strode into the kitchen.

"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" said Naru Narusegawa with a voice so frigid that it could super-cool an arctic glacier

Both Keitaro and Motoko were sitting at the kitchen table, or at least Keitaro was – Motoko was in her wheelchair. Despite how angry Naru was at her and the _baka_ right now, every time she saw Motoko sitting in the metal contraption she felt her heart twinge. It was unreasonable, but on some level Naru couldn't shake the feeling that she had been partially responsible for whatever accident had befallen Motoko that fateful night.

"N-Narusegawa!" stammered Keitaro, his previous calm demeanour giving way to an expression of shock and fright.

Motoko cast a sideways glance at her husband and wondered about his odd behavior. This was something that she had seen twice now in less than 24 hours. This Narusegawa woman seemed to have a way of provoking the utmost fear out of her husband and she wondered why.

"W-we were just talking about school," Keitaro continued as he picked up one of Motoko's textbooks to demonstrate the authenticity of his statement.

Naru shrugged and strode across the kitchen to the refrigerator. She knew that Keitaro was lying to her and it made her angry, but what could she do?

"I didn't think you cared about school anymore," she said tartly as she fetched a large glass pitcher of juice.

"After all, now that you have a wife, I guess you don't need to keep your promise to go to Todai anymore, right Keitaro?" she snarked as she looked for a clean glass.

Keitaro didn't say anything in response, but Motoko could easily read the look of agony that flashed across his face. Something that this spiteful woman said had obviously wounded him deeply. She decided to break her silence and took this chance to interject on her husband's behalf.

"Keitaro-san is talking about my schoolwork," she said, "Regretfully I am quite far behind and at a loss as to how I should continue."

Naru poured her juice, staring intently as the liquid pooled and swirled in the glass.

" _Of course, she has no memory… how can she go to school now? And she was just about to graduate too…"_

Once again she found her heart swelling with conflicted emotions. She was angry, damn angry, at both Keitaro and Motoko, but at the same time she felt some sympathy for the girl. How could you not? She had lost her memory and her legs and was fast on her way to losing pretty much everything in her life… it was tragic.

" _She still has Keitaro. I guess she's got that one over me."_

Naru's mood turned foul again and so did her tongue.

"Why bother?" she asked with a carefree tone that was obviously false. "You're married, why not just pump out a few babies? I'm sure Keitaro is just _itching_ to make them with you."

"Ah, well… we're not…" stammered Keitaro.

"That's a little…" started Motoko, her own voice uncharacteristically high.

The duo then stared at each other awkwardly and fell silent.

If anyone had dared to say those words over a month ago, the "old" Motoko probably would have challenged everyone in the general vicinity to a duel on the spot, or at the very least launched Keitaro across the room out of embarrassment. The "new" Motoko however just blushed furiously and stared off into space. The look was clear and Naru didn't need to be a mind reader to know that the younger girl had not only considered the idea, but wasn't entirely against it.

Naru's mood, already foul, turned even blacker. She locked her eyes on Keitaro.

"So, did you do it already Keitaro?" she taunted, her voice thick with menace.

Keitaro's face blanched. He was familiar with this tone and he knew what usually came next.

"N-Narusegawa-" he tried to interject, only to be bowled backwards as the fiery _tsundere_ stomped across the floor towards him.

"Well? You've already been married over a month?" she said. Naru didn't realize that in her zeal and anger, spittle was flying from her mouth.

Both Keitaro and Motoko were shocked. Neither one of them had any words to express their dismay at Narusegawa's behavior and only Keitaro had some inkling of what was driving her insane.

She turned her head to Motoko, "Or did you wait until you came back here? Kitsune told me that you two snuck off to the hot springs last night – "

Suddenly, her tirade was cut off by a yell that shocked her back to some semblance of common sense.

"NARU!" screamed Haruka from behind the trio, "That's enough!"

As one, all three young people whipped their heads around in the direction of one extremely irate house mother and Naru felt her blood freeze. She had screwed up – big time. She only hoped Haruka would let her off with something less than a crippling injury of her own.

LH-LH-LH

Noriyasu Seta smiled to himself as he heard the familiar tinkling of the bell that hung from the door of the Hinata Tea House. For years now he had made a point of visiting Haruka first whenever he had returned home from a dig and while she always seemed to be annoyed whenever he showed up, she had yet to actually turn him away. He was grateful for this, because truthful it wasn't until he was here – surrounded by the familiar sounds and scents of his youth, that he felt that he had truly returned home.

Of course these days, Haruka wasn't the only reason he made the tea-house his first destination. Seta found his smile broadening as he spotted the two women closest to his heart, sitting together in what could only be described as one short step away from a picture perfect family.

" _Someday,"_ he thought to himself, _"Someday… we'll get there."_

Haruka was the first one to lift her head at the sound of the bell. She was, after all, the proprietor of the tea house and it was entirely a natural reaction on her part to greet new customers. Her fingers which had been tapping idly along the side of her tea cup abruptly stopped moving and her face, always impassive, changed slightly along with her demeanour. It was subtle, but enough for her companion to look up from her homework and stare as well.

"Papa!" screamed Sarah McDougal as she launched herself like a rocket across the tea shop and on a direct course for her absent father.

Seta received her fluidly and lifted her up to his waist, allowing the small girl to cling to his hip. Thankfully, he was a large man and used to a lifestyle of hard work, so the effort itself was trivial.

" _Only another year or two and I won't be able to do that anymore,"_ he thought regretfully. It was painful, but he needed to work in order to support himself and Sarah and his work unfortunately demanded that he missed a large portion of his adopted daughters childhood. He had a hope, albeit faint, that someday Haruka might just help him change that and it'd be just like the old days… or something close to it.

Seta lifted Sarah up as she snuggled into his cheek and he awkwardly made his way back towards Haruka.

"I'm happy to see you too Sarah-chan," he smiled at his adopted daughter. "Have you been good for Keitaro-kun and Haruka-san?" he asked as he took a seat across from the aforementioned Haruka, positioning Sarah on to his lap.

Sarah gave her father an awkward grin and laugh, "Heh heh heh…"

Haruka put down her tea cup and gave Sarah a slow, judging glance. "She hasn't been _too_ bad," she drawled. It was faint, but damning praise from the older woman.

"So what are you guys working on here," asked Seta as he looked at the papers and textbooks on the table.

"I'm tutoring her in Spanish," replied Haruka.

Seta rubbed his daughters head. "How's it going?"

"Aprendo español, pero no hablo con fluidez!" she replied with a grin.

"Hey! Not bad!" exclaimed the proud father. "Although that accent sounds as atrocious as Haruka's…" he grinned.

Haruka shrugged. "I learned from you, smart ass."

"Why can't I take English Papa?" pouted Sarah.

Both Seta and Haruka just rolled their eyes; surprisingly it was Haruka that actually answered the girl's question.

"You already speak English! What's the point of learning a language you already know?"

"Good grades…" muttered Sarah under her breath.

"It's not about the grades," said Seta. "This is one of the few things you'll learn before college that's an actual useful skill. And besides…"

He scooted Sarah off his lap and onto the chair next to him.

"If you get good at it, maybe I'll take the two of you with me the next time I go to South America…"

The reaction from the two girls at the table couldn't have been more different than night and day. Sarah's face instantly brightened up and her smile was so radiant that it could only be described in pure wattage. Haruka on the other hand wore a cloudy grimace that was a far departure from her normal impassive expression.

"Really Papa?" cheered Sarah.

Haruka flicked her cigarette into the ashtray. "Leave me out of it," she said stoically.

"Whaa?" cried Sarah as she locked her now watering eyes on the woman.

Haruka took a moment to gather her thoughts. She hated it when Sarah stared at her like that – it made her feel like she was being a royal bitch.

" _Maybe I am…"_

"I need to run the Tea House," she declared without much enthusiasm.

Seta jammed his thumb over his shoulder at the direction of the counter. "Can't Mitsune-chan do that for you?"

"Glad someone noticed I was here…" groused Mitsune 'Kitsune' Konno as she continued washing teacups and only occasionally listening in on other people's conversations.

Haruka studied the expressions of the pair seated in front of her. To her left was Seta with his stupid happy-go-lucky grin and deep brown eyes that seemed to taunt Haruka with their affection. Then next to him, Sarah, her face screwed up in a ball of excitement and anticipation, her own sky blue eyes hopeful and expectant. Haruka bit down on the filter of her cigarette and groaned slightly. It wasn't fair. Why did they have to gang up on her like this?

"We'll see," she eventually muttered, all but completely defeated.

Seta smiled at Haruka and reached out and briefly touched her hand. When she didn't swat him away, he gave her a little squeeze and then retreated to the safety of his side of the table. He was a foolish man, but not _that_ foolish. He knew when he should be grateful for the win and just move on. Sarah on the other hand was an ecstatic bundle of energy, leaping up and down and cheering. It took every ounce of willpower that Haruka had to not smile at her.

Seta snapped his fingers, "Oh before I forget!"

He reached into his leather satchel and pulled out a bundle wrapped in tissue paper and a book. Handing them to Sarah he said, "Ah… this is a special doll I picked up in Peru. There's a book that goes with it."

Sarah took both from her father's hands and unwrapped the doll. It was cute, handmade obviously, and wearing what she assumed was some sort of cultural costume. She quickly flipped open the book to see if she could learn more, only to be confronted with a wall.

"This is in Spanish!" she exclaimed.

Both Haruka and Seta chuckled. "That's kind of the point…" her father said absently.

Seta turned to Haruka. "I've got something for my other best girl as well," he said. The proclamation earned him a derisive snort from the aforementioned "other best girl".

Slowly he slid a non-descript wooden box across the table. Haruka flipped open the lid and looked inside, a brief smile flashing across her face. Closing the box she looked up and softly said, "My favorite… thanks Nori."

Seta grinned foolishly in return. "I've got a bottle of spiced rum that pairs with those nicely. Just let me know, okay?"

Haruka didn't say anything, but Seta could tell from the brief blush that crossed her cheeks that she wasn't saying no. It was a hell of a lot more than he had expected.

Sarah peeked over the top of her book and stole a glance at both her father and, in her opinion, her prospective mother. She had made it clear to her Papa that in no uncertain terms was he allowed to marry any woman other than Haruka. He hadn't really put up much opposition to that declaration, but he had said to her that it might take a while. Sarah was okay with that, after all, to her it was just a pure formality.

Still, it'd be nice if they could all start living together. She smiled a rare true smile of joy and busied herself with the job of translating the book in her hands. She'd have to do her part as well if she wanted everything to turn out right, which in this case meant Spanish. She hoped Haruka appreciated what a good daughter she was.

Seta looked at his watch and checked the time. "Maybe we can catch up after dinner?" he ventured. "I still need to go talk to the part-timer about some work I want him to do…"

Haruka's mouth went slack. Seta had been gone for over two months now and she realized she had a hell of a lot to fill him in on.

"I better go with you," she said as she stood up. "Kitsune, watch Sarah please?"

She motioned for Seta to follow her. Seta gave Sarah one last tussle of the hair and followed Haruka out of the Tea House. Despite Haruka's mask of indifference, he had known the woman long enough to tell when something was wrong.

Haruka pulled out a pair of cigarettes, offering one to the man next to her. He accepted and they both lit up.

"Using Julia's daughter like that… that was low Nori, even for you," she complained as they started to walk.

Seta shrugged. "I don't think Sarah-chan minds at all… I'm only thinking of everyone's happiness."

Haruka grumbled something unintelligible under her breath. Considering she hadn't hit him, or outright told him off, he could tell that she was mostly just putting up a front. This was the most progress he'd made in a year with the object of his affection and it took every ounce of will power he had to not just sweep her into his arms.

" _Slow and steady has been working so far Noriyasu,_ " he thought to himself, _"Let's not blow it on the home stretch."_

"What's really bothering you?" he asked.

Haruka stopped walking and then pointed at the new addition to the Hinata-sou.

"This," she said sardonically.

Seta was confused. Why was there a ramp here? Did something happen to the inn? What was going on?

Haruka took another long drag off her Marlboro and leaned against the side of the building.

"It's a long story…"

LH-LH-LH

Dinner had been mostly an awkward affair. The table had been full, perhaps more so than it had been in a long time with the addition of Haruka, Sarah and Seta. The elder Urashima had insisted that everyone eat together tonight and it was apparent to Keitaro that the reason for this was to avoid a repeat performance of Naru's earlier antics. Keitaro reflected that he had never been so happy to see his sour faced Aunt as when she had appeared in the kitchen earlier that day.

Now everything was over and for the most part the inn had settled back down into a tense, but quiet calm. Narusegawa had disappeared quickly after dinner, followed almost immediately by Kitsune who was obviously chasing after her best friend. The younger duo of Su and Sarah had gone off to play games while Haruka and Seta had retired to the tea house, leaving only the group currently assembled on the couch in the living room.

"Senpai, can you check these problems for me?" timidly asked Shinobu as she handed her workbook to Keitaro.

Motoko, who was seated on the opposite side of Keitaro from Shinobu, shot the younger girl a barely concealed dirty look.

" _Senpai this, senpai that. Oh look at me senpai! I'm so cute and shy!"_

Motoko didn't really _dislike_ the younger girl, but her obviously brazen affection for Keitaro was starting to shred her nerves. Even if she was convinced that most, if not all, of the girls at the Hinata-sou had some sort of attraction for her husband, she was satisfied that for the most part they concealed it. Shinobu on the other hand – she might as well be wearing a t-shirt that said, 'KEITARO-SAN'S NUMBER ONE LOVER' on it and it was starting to really make Motoko mad.

Finishing up the last problem on her own worksheet she turned to her husband and pressed it into his hands.

"Can you check my worksheet for me senpai? Oh can you?" she breathlessly asked in a high falsetto while fluttering her long eyelashes.

Keitaro almost choked on his own spit. Motoko's new attitude was taking him some serious time to get used to. In fact, if he hadn't managed to get closer to Tsuruko over the last few weeks, he would have been at a total loss as to how to cope. At least, he reasoned to himself, he could see that perhaps Motoko was just acting more like her sister these days instead of having gone completely insane. Indeed, the family resemblance between the two in not just looks, but humor and personality, was downright uncanny.

"Eh… heh. Sure…" he embarrassingly answered as he received the worksheet. Shinobu on the other hand merely turned her head away – she was keenly aware that Motoko was mocking her.

Keitaro coughed and tried to push past the moment before it escalated. "What else is on the study agenda tonight?" he asked.

"Just reading I guess…" said Motoko despondently. She had in her approximation about fifteen novels worth of reading to do just to be able to make sure she could tackle the material she was supposed to be up to already. She wasn't looking forward to it.

Shinobu reached over and picked up a small box from the side of the couch.

"I've just got an art project…" she said.

Keitaro's eyes brightened, this was something that he was actually good at.

"Anything I can help with?" he asked hopefully.

Shinobu proceeded to place her materials on the low table in front of the trio. "I don't know? It's calligraphy…"

Keitaro winced. He was pretty good at sketching, but that meant traditionally the usages of a pencil or chalk. The long brushes that were required in order to do Japanese calligraphy were not something he was familiar with.

"Sorry… not really good at that…" he said despondently before returning to grading the math homework in his lap.

Motoko tried to read her textbook but she was finding it slow going. Keitaro had thankfully managed to go through most of her homework and using his own knowledge had been able to figure out what portions of the text were necessary for her to read in order to catch up. In this manner, she at least had a plan of attack that potentially could end up with her not being a high school dropout. Still, given the difficulty that she was having keeping her interest on the page in front of her, she had started to wonder if she had ever been a good student to start with. She'd have to inquire about the state of her marks on Monday.

She tore her gaze away from her book and looked over at Keitaro who was still grading away. From glancing over his shoulder she could see that Shinobu at least, wasn't so bad at math. She winced when she saw the marks on her own workbook and sighed. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that the other girl, Shinobu, was now on the floor in front of the table and using a large brush to write _kanji_ on a piece of thick art paper. Something about it made her hand twitch.

"You're holding the brush wrong," she said flatly, not really knowing why she did.

Shinobu had been concentrating fairly intently, so the statement from Motoko was like a splash of cold water across her face. The response was predictable.

"Eep!" she went as she pulled back with a confused look, nearly messing up the stroke she had been working on.

Motoko pushed herself to the edge of the couch and using her arms slid her backside down to the floor. Keitaro nervously watched her, but determined that she was doing well enough on her own.

"Here, let me show you," she said as she procured another piece of paper and then held out her hand to Shinobu. The intention was clear and the younger girl handed her the brush.

"First make sure you wash it cleanly, like this," she said as she dipped the horsehair bristles into a cup of water.

"Then make sure the ink is applied evenly," she did so as Shinobu watched.

"Finally, make sure you hold it as so," she demonstrated the proper grip and Shinobu attempted to copy it with another brush she had in her hand.

At this point, Keitaro was watching rather intently. Shinobu had obviously fallen into her _kōhai_ role quite easily and was simply absorbing the lesson from Motoko, so she hadn't yet noticed that Motoko was imparting to her a skill that technically she shouldn't know, or at least, he assumed a woman with no memory should not be able to recall.

Motoko made an elaborate series of brush strokes, all the while narrating to Shinobu the proper feel and movement to make against the texture of the paper. The younger girl interrupted her from time to time to ask a question, or to note a repetition of technique, but for the most part Motoko simply moved her hands on autopilot, not even noticing what it was that she was writing. It was only when Shinobu had finally dared to ask her this question that she had realized what she had done.

"Oh, I guess it's… an _omamori_ for… _yaku-yoke_?" she asked to no one in particular.

"Protection from evil spirits?" laughed Keitaro. "I don't think we have many of those around here…"

"It's pretty," said Shinobu as she marvelled at the delicate brush strokes. Her own were thick and solid things that looked more like they had been printed on by a sloppy machine, a stark contrast to Motoko's own fine work.

Motoko gently picked up the paper and blew across it in an attempt to settle the last lines of ink.

Keitaro's curiosity finally overwhelmed him and he asked the question that he had been holding onto while he had watched Motoko work.

"Did you just remember how to do that?" he asked.

Motoko paused for a moment as realization washed over her. She hadn't actually been thinking about it, but now that Keitaro had mentioned it…

"Yes, I did just remember this. My mother taught it to me," she turned her head and flashed Keitaro a magnificent smile, a slight tear forming in her eye. Even Shinobu clapped her hands in joy as the mood in the room turned bright.

"Motoko… you're crying?" asked Keitaro as he leaned down off the couch next to her.

Motoko sniffed, "It's okay... it's just… I'm happy."

She reverently placed the prayer back on the table and used the back of her hand to dry her eyes.

"I remember her teaching me this," she smiled to herself.

"I remember what she looked like…"

Shinobu couldn't take it anymore. Over the last few days her heart had been tossed about in a sea of chaos. When she had first heard that her beloved senpai had married Motoko, she had been in a stake of shock. Then when she had heard about what had happened to the former kendoka, she had wanted to cry. Finally, when both Motoko and Keitaro had arrived home and made it quite clear that yes, they were a couple, she wanted to die.

Now, however, she only wanted to do one thing.

Without thinking too hard about it, Shinobu simply closed the distance between her and Motoko and took the other girl in a warm embrace.

"Motoko-senpai!" the smaller girl wailed with a sob," That's so… that's so… fantastic!" she blurted out.

In an instant, Motoko felt all the animosity that she had stored up against the smaller girl evaporate and she shyly returned the hug. Turning her head, she saw Keitaro smiling at both of them and she felt, for perhaps the first time, that maybe she was actually home.

LH-LH-LH

"Turn around _anata_ ," whispered Motoko as she tried to situate herself correctly on the washroom bench.

Originally Keitaro had suggested that Motoko take her bath with the other girls, ostensibly because it would be a good way to get to know them better and it was, he said, an activity that previously they had done on a regular basis. He had claimed that doing so would probably help her memory recover faster and she had to admit, it did sound reasonable.

Of course, she rejected the idea entirely. But that didn't mean she didn't think it had merit.

"O-o-okay," stammered Keitaro as he turned to face away from Motoko, granting her access to his back and hair.

Motoko squeezed out some shampoo on to her hand and began to lather up Keitaro's scalp. She could tell that he was nervous about the entire situation, but in the end he had gone through with it simply because Motoko had noted that _she_ didn't feel comfortable bathing with strangers.

She smiled to herself as she worked the lather through her husband's hair.

"That's not too rough?" she asked quietly.

"No… it's fine," Keitaro replied.

It was something that she was starting to understand about Keitaro, and frankly she didn't know how to take it. It appeared that while he was incredibly shy, bashful even, to the point of acting almost like a naïve child, that if _she_ asked him to do something, he _never_ said no to her. Oh, he'd try to talk his way around it, or out of it, but not very convincingly and not for very long. Even tonight, it was almost as if he was struggling against wanting to instantly oblige her and attempting to maintain some level of modesty.

"So what did Seta-san want to talk to you about?" asked Motoko.

Keitaro sighed. His part-time boss, Noriyasu Seta, had managed to get Keitaro alone after dinner and make him a proposition. One that, months ago, he would have leapt at.

"He wanted me to go on a dig with him to America in lieu of classes this semester," he said.

Motoko's hands stopped their movement as her body seized up in shock.

" _Is he going to leave me?"_

Keitaro heard the small gasp of surprise first, then he noticed that Motoko's hands had stopped moving. It took him a moment to understand her reaction –

" _She's… worried?"_

Keitaro cleared his throat. "I told him I'd need to think about it…"

Motoko felt the tension in her body lessen and the breath that she didn't know she was holding finally exhaled. Slowly she started to move her fingers again.

"Do you…" she struggled to complete the sentence, "… want to go?"

Keitaro could hear the catch in her voice. It confused him. Certainly Motoko couldn't be distraught at the mere idea of him leaving for a couple of months…

"Well, I'm interested in archaeology and Seta is basically offering me an inside track if I want to take that as a career. "

"Oh," said Motoko flatly as she started to rinse Keitaro's hair.

"Motoko-chan…" Keitaro began to speak, his feelings were all over the place right now, but he'd have to be a complete moron to not know that Motoko was doing a terrible job of hiding her own.

"I haven't decided to go or not, I actually wanted to talk it over with you first," he declared as she washed the last traces of shampoo out of his hair.

"R-r-really?" she asked in a subdued, but hopeful tone.

Keitaro spun around on his stool and faced Motoko. Sure, they were both naked except for some loosely placed towels, but embarrassment be damned, he had to sort this out with her one way or another.

"What do _you_ want me to do?" he asked, directly looking into her eyes (and studiously avoiding anything below the neck).

Motoko looked taken aback, almost meek and she averted her gaze.

"Whatever you want to do husband… its fine with me," she said dully.

Keitaro had to physically restrain himself from shaking her. He knew that Motoko wasn't entirely acting like her normal self these days, but this level of deference to him was unheard of. Even his sister Kanako, who practically worshiped the ground he walked on, was more opinionated than this girl before him.

"I'm asking _you_ ," he said softly as he held her hands.

There was a long silence and then Motoko spoke without raising her head.

"I'd prefer it if you didn't go right away…" her voice choked up momentarily, she was obviously struggling with something.

"Maybe if I was a bit more settled here…"

Keitaro was about to open his mouth, but then realization hit him like a ton of bricks.

" _Of course! I'm such an idiot – I'm the only person she knows here. She doesn't recognize any of the other girls, even as her friends…"_

It took another moment before the implications of that thought finally settled into Keitaro's thick skull. Keitaro wasn't just the hapless manager Motoko had known for the last two years, or even the strange new husband that her sister had forced on her. No, he was actually a lot more important to her than either of those things.

It scared him to no end, but he had to admit it – To Motoko, he was the only person she knew she could trust, which instantly made him the most important person in the world to her. It was a responsibility that not only was he positive he wasn't ready for, but ruefully he wondered if he even wanted.

" _But… what is she to me?"_ he asked himself as he recalled Morita Sensei's advice.

Motoko realized that Keitaro had been silent for several long moments and as she turned her head to look at him, he appeared to be lost deep in thought. She flushed a little bit when she considered the intimate nature of the current situation – the two of them facing each other in the baths, hand in hand. It was how she imagined lovers would be…

"This is nice," she said softly. This seemed to bring Keitaro out of his fugue state.

"Hmm?" he said.

Motoko blushed. "H-h-holding hands like this… it's nice. I always wanted to, you know… before."

"I'm a little embarrassed…" she added and blushed again.

Keitaro let out a little exasperated sigh that he quickly covered up by squeezing Motoko's hands warmly. He wondered how long they had laid, rested, even slept side by side together in the hospital while he was lost in his thoughts and all she wanted was someone to hold her hand.

" _Have I always been this self-absorbed?_ " he asked himself.

Keitaro had always considered himself a helpful person. He was the kind of guy that would go the extra mile for a friend in need. In fact, this trait of his was directly responsible for the current situation he found himself in as well as for the fate that had befallen Motoko. Sure, she may had made a mistake or two of her own, but he had happily and without thinking followed along with her every step of the way, content in the fact that his "nice guy" self-image was going to remain intact.

And in the end, what had he really done for her? What had he really done for anyone? What did he really want to do? Right this moment, what was it that he wanted to do?

Keitaro took one look at the beautiful girl in front of him and made up his mind.

Impetuously, he leaned in and kissed Motoko boldly on the lips. She hesitated for a moment, but just a moment, and returned it deeply, her arms going up around his neck. They both noted that it was better than last night – maybe experience and sobriety were a good combination for a second attempt.

"Keitaro-san…" muttered Motoko in between kisses.

Keitaro paused for a moment and held her head in his hands. "It's okay Motoko… we'll sleep on it and talk about it later and then we'll make a decision."

He smiled at her broadly. "Together, okay?"

Motoko returned the smile, and then after hesitating for a moment, the kiss as well.

LH-LH-LH

Sleep was elusive for Motoko that night. She had survived another day of emotional highs and lows, the second in a row since coming "home" to Hinata-sou and she wondered what the future held in store for her. She could hear the soft snoring of her husband next to her as she stared at the unfamiliar ceiling and it gave her some comfort – after all, for most of the last month since she had "awoken" to this new life, he had been by her side. Now however, she was faced with a choice – to let him go and pursue this opportunity, or to hold him close and pursue her heart.

" _What should I do?"_ she asked herself.

She knew that a good wife, or at least the kind of wife that she wanted to be, would defer to her husband's discretion. After all, hadn't Keitaro proven to her that he was trying to do his best, not only for himself, but for her as well? He had already sacrificed so much for her sake- spending his inheritance to cater to her disability, and now he was prepared to sacrifice his dream just so that she could feel at ease. It was too much of her to ask, but still she wanted him to stay.

" _I'm a terrible woman and a burden,"_ she lamented.

It was with these heavy thoughts that ultimately she found herself reluctantly drifting off to sleep.

LH-LH-LH

Six year old Motoko wandered through the darkened hall, her tiny wooden _bokken_ held at guard in front of her. She knew it was useless, but still the act of pretending to have a real weapon almost made the terror bearable. Almost.

The music of the _kagura_ was still drifting through the fog that surrounded her; somewhere in the recesses of her mind she recognized it as a _chinkon_ or a dance for the pacification of spirits. Occasionally a note or two would be distorted and the dissonance would cause her neck to flinch and as disconcerting as that was, it paled in comparison to the distinct feeling that she was being hunted by something.

"Mama?" she whispered, desperate for help, but afraid to draw attention to herself.

Somewhere her Mama was dancing, she had to be. If Motoko could only find her, then everything would be alright. She'd be safe with Mama and Papa.

Slowly she slinked down the gloomy corridor, a feeling of nausea welling up in her tiny stomach. For some reason everything seemed so far away and her legs so small. Behind her, a pressure was building that propelled her onwards.

"Mama…" she cried now, a soft sob wracking her tiny little body.

"Mo-to-ko…" came a voice behind her, sounding like glass on stone.

In a panic, Motoko swung her body and little sword around, backing up against a pillar. Slowly a form emerged from the miasma, a small shaft of moonlight from an open window illuminating it's grotesque form. From the hooked claws, to the large protruding nose, to the eyes that seemed like the devil's own, she recognized it immediately.

"K-k-kotengu!" she gasped.

The beast smiled at her, rows upon rows of fishhook like teeth proudly on display.

"Hello little one…" it croaked as it slowly advanced upon her, "Oh, how I've wanted to meet you…"

Motoko shivered and tried to find a way to escape, but every time she moved, the beast simply changed direction to cut her off.

"Mama!" she screamed with all her might as she waved her _bokken_ in front of her! She knew it was the wrong thing to do, she knew she should be running, but she was so terrified…

The monster merely laughed at her. It was so close now that Motoko could smell its rank odour. She could make out the black feathers on its fringe, the warts on its face. The pure evil of its aura.

"Stay away from her!" came a shout out of nowhere.

Motoko turned her head, there at the end of the hall was Mama! She'd come for her!

Like a flash, the figure in the distance closed the ground, and the beast which had previously been giggling in evil rapture turned serious and prepared to meet the charge. There was a moment; a single moment of contact, and then both participants fell backwards. Motoko could not see who was injured.

"Are you okay Motoko-han?" came a strained voice.

Motoko blinked. This wasn't Mama… it was…

"Oneechan?" she gasped in surprise.

The creature laughed a riotous laugh, gleeful and tinged with madness.

"Ah! So the family is all here finally! Oh how I've missed you, sweet little sword-miko. You were such a tasty morsel," it tittered with pure malice.

Tsuruko pushed Motoko behind her and pointed _Shisui_ at the monster. "Stay away!" she growled, her voice filled with absolute menace.

The creature took a step back, falling directly into a shaft of moonlight.

"I'm hurt!" it mocked as it rose to its full height, "You didn't miss me? Oh, but how I've missed you. Just look!" it said as it gestured down below its belt.

Tsuruko swore and tried to keep Motoko behind her so the child wouldn't see the beast shaking its grotesque member or notice the milky fluid leaking from the tip.

The monster laughed again. Obviously it had gotten the reaction it wanted.

"What? If it's too much for you, I can always take the daughter-child… she looks tasty as well," it grinned.

Tsuruko lost her mind and charged, her blade slashing forward like a bolt of lightning. This was, of course, what the vile demon had intended all along and it deftly sidestepped past the swordswoman to get at her precious charge.

Motoko could only stare in terror as the demon reached its wicked claws for her.

"You're mine!" the monster screeched, "YOU'RE MINE!"

Just then, moments before the beast could sink its knife-like claws into her head, there was a flash of light, followed by a scream. She couldn't tell if it was hers or the monsters.

LH-LH-LH

Two hours before dawn, the Hinata-sou was awoken by a piercing scream. Keitaro, being closest to the source of the disturbance was the first to react and he did so by reaching out and putting his arms around the hysterical woman. It didn't take long for the other tenants to arrive. Kitsune was first, not even bothering to knock, she flung open the door only to see a sobbing Motoko being rocked back and forth in Keitaro's arms. Shinobu followed after that, then finally Naru, who hung back with a look of concern on her face.

"What happened?" gasped Kitsune as she rested an arm on Shinobu. The younger girl was obviously bordering on a panic.

"Shh… shh…" repeated Keitaro to Motoko as he continued to rock her.

Looking over his shoulder to address the other girls, his face was pained. "I don't know…"

There was a long silence after that as Motoko seemed to settle down. Eventually it was Naru who spoke up.

"Does anyone smell… smoke?" she asked.

There were a couple of nods of agreement and eventually they would look for and find the source of the smell…

A small pile of white ash on a nearby desk that used to be an _omamori_ specifically for _yaku-yoke_ , or more colloquially, a magic charm for protection from evil spirits.

LH-LH-LH

Authors Note:

Well, huh. This chapter didn't really take all that long to write. Most of the delay between number 6 and 7 was due to needing to take a tiny break and in doing so I started writing another, lighter, happier, funnier fiction called "It's your guys fault that senpai doesn't notice me!" It's supposed to be funny. We'll see. At least it helped me recharge my brain for doing this chapter.

I know some people who are decent at reading in-between the lines will be disturbed by the implications that I've laid out here, but honestly that's just how I roll. In any case, I think everyone can definitely agree that things just got more interesting for Motoko and company. One has to wonder how she's going to interpret this dream and of course, what implications it has on her life if it's less of a dream and more of a memory…

Once again I really want to thank everyone who has reviewed this fiction to date. I've had several good conversations with many of you and it's helped me really narrow down and focus on my fiction. Also, if I send something back, don't worry if you are offending me or something. Trust me, I'll make it known if that's the case (or simply just not respond in the first place). I am really just not that precious about stuff

Anyway, thanks again to everyone – all the good response (reviews, favorites, follows) have kept me engaged in writing this story. Hopefully it will continue to be well received!

Cheers,

QC


	8. Chapter 8

Keitaro put down the receiver of the phone and took a long breath. The morning, which had already started off ominously with Motoko's nightmarish screaming, had turned decidedly darker.

Tsuruko wanted to see _him_ , and just him alone.

"Bad news?" asked Haruka as she strolled by Keitaro on her way to check in on her new "niece".

Keitaro shook his head. "I don't know… Tsuruko didn't sound happy, but she wouldn't tell me anything other than that she needed to talk to me… in person."

Haruka raised an eyebrow. Tsuruko was eccentric, that much was obvious, but she wasn't outright deceptive. For her to be holding something back… Haruka wondered exactly how much shit Keitaro was actually in.

"I don't like it," she said bluntly, cigarette dangling precipitously from her mouth.

Keitaro nodded in agreement.

"When?" Haruka asked.

"A week. She said she had some 'business to take care of'… whatever that means," Keitaro responded as he scratched his cheek in thought.

"I _really_ don't like it," Haruka amended her previous statement.

Keitaro shrugged and spoke "What can I do? She's Motoko's family."

Haruka snorted and poked Keitaro in the chest. "No, _we're_ Motoko's family. Tsuruko made that clear, didn't she?" said Haruka.

Keitaro was getting annoyed and held out his hands in a plaintive motion as he asked his aunt, "What the hell should I do? What do you _want_ me to do?"

It was times like these when Haruka really wanted to haul off and beat some common sense into her nephew's thick skull. A lot of people made the mistake of thinking that Keitaro was "too kind hearted" or just "too plain nice", but Haruka knew the truth. He was just too damn wishy-washy to ever intentionally piss someone off. Keitaro Urashima had always been the kind of kid that would break his own back bending over to please everyone else, regardless of how many damn problems it caused in the long run. Haruka had enough of it.

"Grow some balls," she said sharply and then turned away, leaving a distraught and highly insulted Keitaro in her wake. The young manager simply shook his head and groaned.

" _If only it was that easy!"_ he groused to himself, " _Everyone expects me to have all the answers to every problem but I'm just a stupid three time ronin!"_

Dejected and bordering on depressed, Keitaro started to make his way towards the kitchen when he bumped into his other imminent "problem".

"Looks like you really pissed off Haruka, part-timer!" chirped Noriyasu Seta, with what Keitaro perceived was an entirely undue amount of cheer.

" _Great, I'm getting it coming and going today,"_ Keitaro thought to himself.

"I guess…" muttered Keitaro under his breath. He knew he owed Seta an answer, but he was hoping to have more time than just the night to "sleep on it". Truthfully, he had intended to have another long talk with Motoko about the proposed trip, but the events during the night had more or less derailed that for now.

"Sorry, Seta-san, but I haven't really had the chance to make up my mind…" Keitaro started to speak, but was cut off by the older man.

"Don't worry about it! That's not why I'm here anyway..." he replied with his normal carefree tone.

Keitaro sighed in relief. Then, out of curiosity, he asked, "Don't take this the wrong way, but what _are_ you doing here?"

Seta grinned as he walked alongside Keitaro towards the kitchen.

"I never left," he said with a wink.

Keitaro's eye's burst open in shock and he let out a low whistle. "I guess… wow!" he stammered.

"Are congratulations in order or something?" he finally asked.

Seta just waved him off, "Don't go popping the champagne corks yet. But I do plan on asking her again…"

Keitaro nodded. Some of the other residents might not have picked up on it yet, but given his position as both Haruka's nephew and Seta's protégée, he was more than familiar with the ins and outs (and it was mostly outs) of the relationship between the two. However, like Sarah, he was pulling for the couple.

"Anyway," Seta said, quickly changing the topic, "I came up here to see how _you_ were doing. And I don't mean just the school stuff either."

Together, the two men entered the kitchen. Thankfully, it was empty, so they continued their conversation while Keitaro started to put on a kettle for tea.

"Hmm… how much do you know?" he asked his mentor.

Seta sat back on a kitchen chair and stroked his chin. "I reckon I know enough – your aunt filled me in, then Sarah and Su filled me in on whatever parts she left out. You know, I never would have thought things would end up like this for you. I always assumed…"

Keitaro knew what Seta was going to say. After all, he had always assumed it too.

Naru Narusegawa. She was supposed to be _the one_. Keitaro's light and joy was a temperamental honey-eyed brunette with silky smooth skin, a killer figure and a voice as sweet as an angel. Even now, when he'd almost given up on the matter entirely, he still felt the irresistible lure of her siren's call on his soul.

Of course, all that had changed in a moment.

Keitaro put the kettle on the new stove top. It was a fancy electric one that had a flat surface and was lower to the ground – low enough for someone in a wheel chair to use. It, like many other changes to the inn, were a constant reminder of the reality of his current situation.

"Do you think I'm doing the right thing?" Keitaro asked as he leaned against a counter and faced Seta.

Seta looked off into the distance and thought for a moment.

"You know, part-timer, I'm not altogether sure want advice from me on this one. You know how badly I screwed up with Haruka and Julia," he casually replied.

Keitaro nodded. He had more or less gotten the full story from Seta over a round of beers not too long ago. Still, he decided not to let the matter drop. Instead, he just changed his question to something more meaningful.

"How about this instead," he asked, " _Why_ did you do it?"

Seta nodded. That was _the_ question after all; the important question was always "why".

"To put it simply – I knew it wasn't right, but it was the best I could do at the time. If I had it to do over… I would have realized that not choosing was more cruel than kind."

Keitaro grumbled. It was more or less exactly what Haruka had told him – a much more polite version of "Suck it up and just do something." Of course, if Haruka had heard this from Seta, she _might_ have a different spin to put on it.

"We've gotten a lot closer and pretty quickly as well" Keitaro said absently without mentioning exactly who he was talking about. Not that it was any secret.

"That's to be expected Keitaro-kun, you two are married after all." There was a wistful tone in Seta's voice. Keitaro supposed that the subject of _marriage_ itself was one that weighed heavily on his bosses mind for obvious reasons.

"I think she…" Keitaro stopped for a moment and changed his mind. "Actually, I'm positive that she likes me."

Seta raised his eyebrow. "That sounds pretty promising… and you?"

Keitaro heard the kettle start to whistle and removed it from the stove. He set about preparing the tea.

"I like her too… I always have really, it's just that…" he poured a cup of tea and let the thought hang in the air. Not that Seta needed Keitaro to finish the sentence; he intimately knew exactly what the lovelorn man was talking about.

"But you love Narusegawa as well," he declared as he accepted a warm cup from the younger man.

Keitaro nodded. "So you see," he said, "We're a lot alike."

Seta chortled to himself as he took a sip. "Your aunt says that a lot too…"

Keitaro swirled the tea in his cup around and round, watching the tea leaves follow the path of the liquid and centrifugal forces as he tried to decide what to do.

"Have you talked to either of them about it?" Seta asked as he watched Keitaro.

Keitaro shook his head. "I don't see how I can. I mean, I confessed to Naru before this thing with Motoko happened but she never responded."

Seta was shocked by this. From his perspective, and indeed from the perspective of most of the people who knew the couple, it was pretty easy to tell that Naru was, if anything, more than a little fond of Keitaro. Heck, just the way she got angry and possessive like an elementary school kid whenever another woman flirted with the poor boy was a dead giveaway.

"You should probably force the issue then," said Seta with a tone that was uncharacteristically serious. "It'll help you decide."

Keitaro nodded and took another drink of tea. Both Seta and Haruka were essentially telling him the same thing in their own way – make a move and do something and then commit to it. One thing was sure, Naru's behavior around Motoko was starting to get unbearable. If things continued the way that they had been, then it was only going to end up in a messy and likely public confrontation.

No, it was better for Keitaro to solve this himself, and in private. If Naru decided to knock his block into the next prefecture, then so be it. At least he'd have his answer. But first, he had some things that needed his immediate attention.

"Thanks for the chat Boss," Keitaro said as he put his cup away in the sink.

Seta smiled. He hadn't really thought that he had helped Keitaro out all that much, but he hoped that his future nephew-in-law at least felt confident about whatever it was he was going to do.

"Plans?" he asked curiously.

Keitaro adjusted his glasses and thought for a moment.

"I've got to set up a doctor's appointment…" he said, then grinned mischievously and added, "And I need to borrow your van, if that's ok."

Seta fished around in his coat pocket and drew out the keys. "No problem. Where ya going?" he asked.

Keitaro chuckled to himself as he accepted the keys from Seta.

"I need to drive my wife to high school."

LH-LH-LH

The door to the manager's room was ajar so Haruka simply pushed it open the rest of the way and let herself in. She had heard a retelling from Kitsune about what had happened during the wee hours of the morning, so she had been expecting to see a rather distraught, or at least sleepy, Motoko lying in bed. Instead, however, she saw an extremely irritated teenage girl struggling with an oversized bra.

Haruka snorted.

"Don't try to fit yourself into that boulder holder," she joked as she closed the door behind her.

Motoko held the large (and flimsy looking) piece of lingerie to her chest and sighed. She wasn't _small_ by any stretch of the imagination; it was just that Kitsune, aka _milk-chan_ , was practically enormous. On some level, Motoko wondered if the offer of "lending" her the bra wasn't intended to simply humiliate her by pointing out her own inadequacy in that particular department. The fact that the brassiere in question was entirely inappropriate for a high school girl, let alone anyone who wasn't employed as a sex worker, was almost entirely beside the point.

Haruka casually walked over to Motoko and dropped the bag she was holding into the young girls lap.

"You don't have to give those back," she said. "I've got… nicer stuff now."

The grin at the end of that statement didn't go unnoticed by Motoko, who was relieved to see that the bag contained perfectly normal white bras in about her size.

"Thank you!" exclaimed Motoko with an obviously relieved voice.

Haruka picked up the stripper-lingerie that Motoko had been struggling with and inspected it with an expert eye. "Not bad. Kitsune's I assume?" she asked.

Motoko nodded as she slipped herself into one of the more modest pieces that Haruka had brought her.

"You know, in her own way, I think she was trying to help you," Haruka said with a slight smile on her face. This only made Motoko curious.

"After all, she sleeps next to you guys so she ought to know what's up… or what's _not_ up as the case may be. Plus – she snoops."

Motoko looked bashful and suddenly got very intent on studying the seam of the shirt she was holding. "Do you think… do you think Keitaro-san likes that kind of look?" she asked shyly as she continued getting dressed.

Haruka briefly shot Motoko a look that was somewhere in-between "You sweet naïve child" and "Wow, you're a retard." Thankfully, she quickly recovered her composure before the younger girl noticed.

"You really don't have the first idea about men, do you?" she asked in a sympathetic tone.

Haruka hadn't intended it to be an indictment of any sort, but unfortunately Motoko felt the unerring accuracy of those words as they directly nailed her in the heart. She truly did _not_ have any experience, at least that she could remember, with anything having to do with boys. It was an almost cruel twist of fate that someone like her had somehow managed to end up married.

"I don't know…" she said with a slight undertone of disgust in her voice, "From what I gather I was quite butch before I lost my memory."

Haruka snorted. "You could say that…"

"And I was rude to Keitaro-san," Motoko added, her voice picking up some steam.

A slight look of concern was brewing on Haruka's face. She didn't like where this was heading.

"In fact, if I'm to understand things correctly, I regularly challenged him to duels over trivial matters." Motoko finished pulling a shirt over her head and started brushing out her long hair.

She stopped brushing for a moment and then turned to face Haruka, an intense glare on her face.

"I'm sure there's more, but for some reason you all aren't telling me."

" _Shit!"_ thought Haruka as she fumbled for the correct response.

"Why?" Motoko asked.

Haruka bit down on her cigarette and contemplated how to answer such a question.

"Would it change anything?" she finally said.

Motoko continued to stare as she contemplated this. Part of her wanted to know, really wanted to know why everyone was hiding something from her – she had her suspicions on this matter from long before she had ever arrived at the Hinata-sou, from before she had even talked to Keitaro in the hospital. Suspicions that something just didn't quite add up in her life. The question that Haruka had asked her was the same one that she had been asking herself for the last several days.

" _Does it matter? Will it change how I feel? Will it make me happy or sad?"_

"I don't know… I guess," she said then followed it with a sad little laugh. "I suppose that's ironic, isn't it?"

"Why don't you ask Keitaro?" Haruka asked, even though she was fairly sure she knew the answer…

Motoko's face got dark and she bit her lip.

Haruka sighed and lowered herself to the same level as her "niece" so that their faces were meeting.

"You're trying to sort out your feelings aren't you?" she asked with an unusual amount of sympathy in her voice. Motoko didn't know it, but Haruka was a god damn expert on trying to sort out her own feelings.

Motoko nodded.

"You like him?" Haruka ventured.

Motoko nodded again.

"Maybe even… love him?" she asked quietly.

Motoko nodded quickly.

Haruka wanted to laugh at this, but decided it would be against decorum. After all, Motoko wouldn't be the first girl living under the roof of this inn who had fallen in love with her bumbling nephew. Of course, that was probably part of the problem…

"Hold on," she said as she got up and strode towards the large closed chest of drawers that had once been in Motoko's room. She quickly pulled one drawer, the third from the bottom, out and then stuck her arm in towards the back.

"What are you doing?" asked Motoko, her voice ripe with curiosity.

"Found these when we were moving your stuff…" Haruka grunted as she fished around, "Ah ha!" she exclaimed.

Her arm snaked out of the recess of the dresser and she held up a stack of papers in triumph.

"Actually, Kitsune 'found them'… likely she knew where they were all along, the little snoop…" she said as she handed them over to Motoko.

Motoko examined the papers in detail. From the penmanship it was obvious that they were her own writings, some of them were done in pencil and on notebook paper, while others look liked they had been directly torn from school workbooks. It quickly dawned on her that she was reading stories that she had written herself.

Haruka watched Motoko get enthralled with reading and then cleared her throat. "I particularly liked the one about the naughty shrine maiden and the handsome, but clumsy, innkeeper," she said with a devilish tone that made Motoko blush by pure inference.

Motoko quickly shuffled through the papers until she found the story in question. A couple of minutes of scanning later and her face turned decidedly red.

"So it's like that," Haruka said with a hint of a smile on her face.

Motoko held the papers to her chest and closed her eyes. She felt… relieved. For the longest time she had worried that her "old self" and her "new self" were at odds on this matter, and while maybe they would never be entirely the same, one thing was for certain… she had a very active imagination about what she'd like to do to a certain innkeeper.

"These are my true feelings, aren't they…" she muttered to herself as she held the papers to her chest.

Haruka was about to say something when the door to the room flew open and Keitaro stepped in, or to be more accurate, fell in to the room.

"Hey – " he started to say, before tripping on what was likely an invisible turtle and sprawling neatly on the floor. Thankfully, long years of association with her nephew had honed Haruka's reflexes to a razor fine point, so she was well outside of anything resembling his normal groping or pants removal radius when he fell.

Motoko looked bemused for a moment and then delicately folded her writings to put them away.

Looking fondly over at Keitaro, who was still picking himself up off the floor, she softly whispered to herself, "My clumsy innkeeper…"

LH-LH-LH

School had been an interesting experience. At first, she had suspected, or perhaps feared would be the more appropriate term, that it would be decided to send her back to class immediately. However, after some discussion between Keitaro and the Principal, it had been decided that Motoko would return after the summer break, at which point she would be expected to sit the examinations that the rest of her class were currently preparing for and that she should have been sitting herself next week if she hadn't gotten injured.

It was actually pretty nice situation. Certainly if she tried to cram, even with Keitaro's help (and he had pledged to do everything in his power to help her) it would be unlikely that she would pass given how much material she had to catch up on. Instead, with the delay and by taking advantage of the summer break, she might have a shot at salvaging her senior year.

Of course, this meant that instead of having fun with Keitaro she'd be occupying a table at the Beach Café Hinata and trying to catch up on her Japanese history. There was always the chance, however faint, that her memory would come back or at least the parts of it relating to her high school education, but she reasoned that if her Swiss cheese brain was likely to remember anything – school was probably pretty far down the list.

"I should see if I can buy this van off Seta," Keitaro said as he took a corner perhaps a little faster than he ought to have. Motoko had no way of knowing it, but Keitaro's superficial resemblance to his mentor extended to a variety of interesting facets, such as in this instance, an utter lack of regard for road safety.

"I don't know," Motoko said uneasily, "It looks a little bit… dodgy to me."

"What? This thing!" Keitaro exclaimed, "Trust me, it's practically indestructible!" Keitaro emphasized this point by slapping the dashboard and dislodging a piece of plastic trim that proceeded to bounce around the interior of the van.

"Okay… well, I said _practically_ ," he conceded sheepishly.

Motoko couldn't help but laugh at her husband's antics. Keitaro had a way of lifting your spirits the longer you spent with him and she reasoned it was probably his one true talent in life. That wasn't to say that he didn't have a lot of other things he was good at, and Motoko was slowly starting to learn what those things were, but it was this facet of his personality that she loved the most.

" _And I love him… probably,"_ she thought to herself with a smile.

"With all the hospital bills, can we actually afford a car, or a van?" she asked absently as she stared out the window. She wasn't entirely privy to the extent of Keitaro's financial resources, but she had been lead to believe that her new family wasn't flush with cash and she was keenly aware of the burden her physical situation was putting on the already stretched finances.

Keitaro pondered this for a moment. Truthfully, he was just barely getting by with the rent he was collecting from leasing the Tea House to Haruka and from the tenants of the Hinata-sou. If it wasn't for his part-time job working for Seta (which he hoped he still had at this point) they'd probably start back-sliding on budgeting sooner or later. Of course, he did have an ace up his sleeve…

"We can make it work. If I have to, I can always sell off some of the land," he said simply.

This pronouncement drew Motoko's attention off the passing scenery and back to Keitaro's face. He seemed to not be particularly distraught by this idea, but still, she didn't care for it herself. It felt _wrong_ to her.

"We can't sell your family land Keitaro-san," she said earnestly.

Keitaro shrugged his shoulders while holding onto the wheel. "I don't want to either if I can avoid it, but Granny Hina left me several hectares along with the Hinata and even selling one of them would probably net us tens of millions of yen…"

Motoko's mind reeled. She had no idea Keitaro was literally sitting on that kind of money. Of course, Hina City being a suburb of Tokyo meant that the property values would be high, but this much? It was almost inconceivable.

"So, are you telling me that we're basically rich?" she asked puzzled.

Keitaro screwed up his face and thought for a moment. "I guess so, but I don't think I'd sell anything on a whim…"

"You shouldn't!" agreed Motoko violently.

Keitaro smiled as he searched the streets for his next turn.

"I just wanted you to know that you don't have to worry about these things. I can take care of us," he said confidently.

Motoko's hand slid across the seat and landed on Keitaro's knee. She caught his attention for a moment and they shared a smile. Perhaps she didn't know the man next to her as much as she would have liked, and certainly over time she'd get to know him better, but she did understand this much about him at least – this was his way of telling her that she wasn't a burden to him.

For the second time that day, she felt her heart lift just a little higher.

LH-LH-LH

The physical therapy had been annoying and painful, just as expected. Thankfully she was able to lay back and enjoy a nice rub down from Keitaro while she discussed future visits with the managing therapist. Due to the fact that she was now at home and had been using her crutches on her own, it had been decided that she'd only need to come in periodically to have her progress checked as well as to receive any sort of instructions on potential exercises she could perform on her own.

"So you'll have to make sure to do this regularly at home as well," the therapist, a young woman with a toothy grin, said to her.

Motoko nodded in ascent as Keitaro worked his magic on her sore muscles.

The woman winked coyly at Keitaro, "Make sure to take good care of her husband-san!" she chuckled. It seemed everyone knew that the couple were newlyweds and took great enjoyment out of teasing them.

Keitaro blushed, but didn't stammer when he replied, "I intend to."

The two of them thanked the woman and then after getting Motoko situated back in her chair left for their next appointment, a meeting with a general practitioner that Motoko had scheduled herself seemingly out of the blue when they had arrived earlier at the medical complex.

She had told Keitaro something along the lines of, "I just want to get a basic check-up" and thankfully he had believed her. The truth of course, was a little bit different from that and now that she was here by herself in the doctor's office, she was struggling to carry through on her intentions. It was just too embarrassing.

"So, anything else Urashima-san?" the doctor, a pleasant woman in her mid-30's, asked as she checked over Motoko's medical history.

"Ah… sensei…" she began to stammer. The doctor looked up from her notes and waited for the shy young woman to get a handle on herself.

Motoko looked flustered and lowered her head, then muttered something barely audible.

The older woman laughed. It wasn't too uncommon of a request, particularly for young married women.

"I take it you've never used it before?" she asked Motoko who merely nodded in response.

The doctor tapped her pen on her desk. "Okay, I'll write you a prescription. There's nothing here in your medical history that goes against this, so it should be fine. Just take it to the pharmacy and the pharmacist will give you some literature to read."

Motoko looked surprise. "That easy?" she asked absently.

The doctor chuckled as she filled out the prescription.

"Well, it isn't a particularly outlandish request Urashima-san," she said. She handed the prescription to Motoko, and then considering for a moment how young the girl was, she decided to ask a question or two of her own.

"Did they explain any of this to you at the hospital?" she asked.

Motoko grimaced in response.

She had _wanted_ to ask, but never really managed to find the courage. At the time, it didn't seem particularly important – after all she was living in a sort of suspended reality in the hospital, treated like a "patient" with the only goal of being able to leave and go home. Now of course, she _was_ home and her situation was pretty clear even if Narusegawa's outburst yesterday hadn't pushed it straight and center in her mind, the reality was that she was a young woman who shared a bed every night with a young man. Oh yes, the situation was clear – crystal clear.

The doctor patted Motoko on the arm in a reassuring manner and spoke gently, "I've actually treated another patient in a similar situation as yours. She has two children, both conceived after she was injured. There's nothing wrong with you in that regard, so if you choose to have kids you can expect a fairly normal pregnancy."

Motoko smiled weakly. It was embarrassing, but it was a relief to know as well. She thanked the doctor, but it appeared, much to Motoko's chagrin, that the other woman was only just getting started.

"Also, if you're having any problems with issues like sensitivity, or positioning during intercourse I'm sure that they can be addressed. Unlike men, these types of injuries don't usually affect or diminish a woman's pleasure from sex," the doctor continued, her eyes now practically burning with the passion of instilling rarely used medical knowledge.

Motoko's smile started to fade. Her eyes went wider.

"And of course, lubrication can be an issue but that's easily overcome. I'd recommend a non-silicon based lubricant that's water soluble."

Motoko's now fading smile was turning into an awkward and twisted construction that was starting to look more like a grin of terror. Still, the doctor continued her lecture with merciless enthusiasm.

"If you have trouble achieving orgasm there are several mechanical aids I can recommend. There's one that's popular with female patients who have spinal injuries and it's quite simple, just a small vacuum pump that engorges the clitoris, increasing blood flow and nerve sensitivity…"

Fifteen minutes later, Keitaro was pushing a very silent and introspective Motoko towards the direction of the hospital pharmacy. Originally he had been quite worried upon seeing her face, as she looked ashen and pale to him, with a thin layer of perspiration on her forehead. Thankfully she had just waved him off, claiming that she was "fine" and "just thinking about things."

He would have sworn that he heard her mutter something under her breath about vacuum cleaners.

LH-LH-LH

"You must be tired of this by now," joked Morita sensei as she passed the cup of tea across the desk to Motoko, who gladly accepted the drink.

After taking a long sip, Motoko set the teacup down and straightened out her bangs. Truthfully, she _was_ a little over today.

"I think Keitaro-san just wanted to make the best use of the van today…" she uttered with a bemused smile.

"Is it hard getting around the city without a van?" Morita asked in an attempt to get her patient talking.

Motoko shrugged, "I can't really say. I've barely been out of the hospital a couple of days."

Morita drew her own cup up to her lips and studied the young woman before her. This wasn't unusual, patients, even if they _wanted_ to be here, didn't often engage on their own behalf to talk about their problems. Still, there was something about this Urashima girl that was rubbing her the wrong way and she couldn't put her finger on it.

"You know that I spoke with your husband, correct?" she asked.

Motoko nodded and replied, "Keitaro-san told me as such. This is supposed to help me recover my memories…" her voice trailed off.

" _Okay, that inflection was hard to miss,"_ thought the experienced psychologist. This wasn't something that she had been expecting, but it bore further exploration.

"And how do you feel about that?" she asked.

Motoko brushed an errant strand of hair behind her ear; the fidgeting gesture didn't go unnoticed by the older woman across from her with the studious expression.

"Well, it's pretty inconvenient right now," she said without much emotion.

Morita nodded. "It must be quite frustrating as well," she said.

Motoko blew on her tea and then responded, "It can be some times."

" _If this girl is frustrated or annoyed, she's certainly not showing it,_ " thought the psychologist. Morita had her own suspicions about Motoko's behavior, but she was keeping those cards close to her chest for now. It'd be better if she could get the younger woman to make the first move on her own.

" _Perhaps with a pointed question?"_

Clearing her throat, Morita set down her teacup and gave Motoko her most pleasant smile while she struck directly to the heart of the matter.

"Urashima-san, do you want to get your memories back?" she asked.

The shocked reaction from Motoko as she almost lost her grip on her drink spoke volumes as to what was going on. The only question in Morita's mind was if it was a voluntary or subconscious decision on her patient's part that was causing her current predicament.

Motoko took a few seconds to settle herself and then leaned back thoughtfully in her chair. If anyone had asked her this question a month ago, or even just a week ago, she would have answered immediately. Now however, something was holding her back.

The words that she spoke next were true, she had known that as soon as she had heard them, but they were no less confusing in their nature.

"What if I don't want to remember?"

LH-LH-LH

Author's Note:

So in this chapter we have some more character development going on. I particularly like the way that the relationship between Haruka and Seta in some ways parallels the relationship between Motoko and Keitaro and so it was natural for me to draw the associations between the older couple and the younger couple in the way that I laid it out here. Asides from that, Seta, despite his foolishness, usually had pretty solid advice for Keitaro in the manga whenever he was asked for it and Haruka is stepping up to fill that role for Motoko considering Motoko often acts as the sensible or moral point for the rest of the girls when they need someone (other than Haruka) to fill that role.

So far I think I am managing to deal with all the subplots fairly effectively. I hope that if anyone disagrees or notices something that I've dropped that they'll speak up now before I let it get too far out of control!

Once again, I want to really thank the people here for how well received this story has been. I really appreciate all of the feedback (of all kinds) that I've gotten and particularly the story and author favorites people have been giving me. It's really a great encouragement to keep writing.

Thanks for reading,

QC


	9. Chapter 9

Keitaro exited the car, flashing the driver both a bank note and a smile. It was rather unnecessary, after all, someone – probably Tsuruko, had paid the man in advance for the trip. However, Keitaro felt oddly obligated to convey this entirely false "thanks" either out of a sense of propriety or perhaps because it was simply his brains way of driving off the thoughts that had been consuming him on the long road trip – doing something normal and automatic to keep from thinking of the abnormal and strange.

As the car rumbled off into the distance Keitaro looked upon the large gate of the family compound that housed the Shinmei-ryu Dojo. He was annoyed that despite the fact that Tsuruko could have chosen a million other places for their meeting, she had decided to choose the one place that held some of his most recent bad memories. Perhaps this was her intention? To remind Keitaro of the sombre day, or to throw him off guard – not that it would take much, Tsuruko's angry grimace was often enough to instil fear into the timid managers heart.

" _I might as well get this over with,"_ he thought to himself as he pressed the button of a decidedly modern looking intercom.

"Urashima for Aoyama Tsuruko-san," he muttered. There was no response for a long time and then finally he heard a buzzer signalling that the gate had opened.

" _This figures – she calls me all the way out here, doesn't bother to return my phone calls and won't even meet me at the gate."_

If Keitaro had any doubts before that this meeting was going to be filled with bad news, then they had all but been confirmed. He was all but certain that today was going to be five hundred kilometres of bad road and he felt his spirits sink even further.

Inside the gates, things looked pretty much as he had remembered them, and why shouldn't they? It had barely been a couple of months since he had last been here. The ancient buildings off to the side that housed the family members proper, the large Dojo building that dominated the front court yard, even the winding path that led up to the family shrine where he had joined his hand with Motoko in matrimony. Everything was exactly the same – except of course, for him.

He pushed his hands into his pocket, balling them up into fists and then strode purposely into the courtyard. Tsuruko might be intimidating, and almost certainly she was going to try to mess with either him or Motoko today, but he was determined to do his best. He wasn't the same naïve boy that had unwittingly tossed both his and Motoko's fates to the wind and while he couldn't truly say that he regretted being as close to the beautiful swordswoman as he was today, he admitted that if he had to do it over again it'd be on better terms. His terms.

" _Of course, she wouldn't have accepted me, but if I had known her then as I know her now, I doubt I would have been able to stop looking at her._ "

It was with these thoughts stirring in his head and heart that he paced up and down the well-worn cobble plaza. Motoko or Naru? As it stood right now, he didn't see how he could actually allow himself to make a choice in the matter, but he if he could turn back the clock… what would he do? Regardless of how difficult circumstances had been, ought he not be happy that at least he had a good woman at his side that seemed to care for him? Should he feel instead that he had been cheated out of the opportunity to find his own fate with Narusegawa? In a way, didn't his choices lead him _exactly_ to this outcome anyway?

"Ah… Urashima-san, sorry to have kept you waiting," spoke Tsuruko as she approached from the main house. Keitaro looked up from his thoughts and locked eyes on her.

She looked _tired_ and not at all like the violent banshee he had built up in his mind. Her long black hair, similar to Motoko's in every way, seemed dishevelled and dull. Her face was drawn, almost as if she had lost weight since their last meeting just weeks ago and worst of all, he could see that her eyes were rimmed with redness, a sure indication of emotional upheaval.

He sighed to himself. Filling himself up with anger at Tsuruko wasn't going to be an option it seemed. He'd have to find some other way to steel his resolve.

"Why did I need to come here?" Keitaro asked. His voice had a decidedly rough edge to it. Even if he felt sympathy towards the obviously distraught Tsuruko, he wasn't willing to completely make himself available. He'd already gotten into far too much trouble by being so willing to throw himself into the troubles of beautiful women.

Tsuruko walked up aside Keitaro and with a gesture bade him to walk with her.

"There are some things best discussed in private and to be truthful, there are things that I need to show you that are only here," she said cryptically as they departed the courtyard for a path that led from the compound. Keitaro felt the cold grip of fear settle over him as he realized what direction they were heading in.

"We're not going _there_?" he asked in a voice that was more distraught than he had intended to let show.

Tsuruko shook her head. "It's on the way, but our intent is further up the mountain. Tell me, has Motoko-han told you much of our families history? Of the purpose of the Shinmei-ryu?"

Keitaro looked uncomfortable for a moment and then spoke with much embarrassment. "Only a little… something about demon hunting or spirit hunting… I don't really know."

He thought for a moment and then added, "I know that Motoko is… religious? I mean, she volunteers as a shrine maiden every holiday… I guess."

Tsuruko grunted. It would be rare to find a person these days who didn't believe that tales of _kami_ or _yōkai_ were nothing more than legends. In fact, most people simply viewed them as just part of the quaint cultural history of the people of Japan, and perhaps in the modern world that was exactly what they were.

However, for Tsuruko and by extension Motoko, they were not just legends – they were a very real facet of everyday life. She'd have to make Keitaro understand this if she was to plead her case.

"This school dates back to the _Ashikaga bakufu_ , which as I'm sure you know, was centered here in Kyoto," she said.

Keitaro, being a native to the region himself was aware of this period of history – it was also known as the _Muromachi jida_ and had begun in the 13th century during the reign of the shogun Ashikaga Takauji _._ He nodded slowly to Tsuruko to indicate that he was following her.

"It was during this time that there was a shift in society away from _Shingon Buddhism_ and many families that had never fallen into practices like _Ryōbu Shinto_ suddenly found themselves and their teachings to be in much higher regard. Among these people was a priest, an exorcist by the name of Aoyama Yasunori."

Tsuruko stopped moving for a second and looked far off into the distance up the hill. Keitaro felt he knew what was bothering her, as he was unsettled himself – they were awfully close to the place where Motoko had tried to kill herself.

"Sorry," she said as she began to walk again. Keitaro let it pass without comment.

"Yasunori had spent many years traveling the country, helping villagers and offering council against evil spirits. During this period of time he had come to be acquainted with a variety of kami, and one in particular, a _Daitengu_ by the name of _Sōjōbō._ "

Keitaro raised his eyebrows and gave Tsuruko a hard look. He wasn't much of a student of history, but there probably wasn't a Japanese boy alive who didn't know the story of Minamoto no Yoshitsune and how his supposedly peerless sword technique was learned from the benevolent spirit that Tsuruko had just named.

Tsuruko returned Keitaro's look of scepticism with a subtle smile and continued her story as they traversed the rocky path.

" _Sōjōbō_ offered to teach my ancestor a special sword technique, one that would help him in his duty to banish evil spirits, but he listed one condition – that in every generation a swordsman would seek out and take a price in blood from a tribe of _Kotengu_ , lesser crow-like beings that were _Sōjōbō's_ hated enemies. The bargain was quickly struck and from that meeting sprung our school."

Keitaro noticed that the path had become narrower and now he found himself leaning slightly to his left, edging away from the side and the precipitous drop to the ground below. He steadied himself with his hand on a rocky wall to his right and did his best to ignore the unpleasant memories from that night months ago.

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked, "I'm not an Aoyama…"

Tsuruko nodded. "No, but it involves your wife."

The path twisted again and opened up finally as they reached the summit of the hill. Keitaro was momentarily overtaken by the panoramic view of the mountain below him until his eyes were drawn to an ancient shrine standing only a couple hundred meters away. He didn't even notice it when Tsuruko grabbed his hand and led him towards a small copse of trees.

"Now, I'm going to tell you a more recent and personal story," she said as she beckoned for him to sit. Once Keitaro found himself situated under a large tree, Tsuruko lowered herself to the ground directly in front of him, _seiza_ -style. She laid her sword in between them and placed her hands on her knees.

"Of my generation I was the one chosen to uphold Yasunori's pledge," she said softly. Keitaro thought he noticed her eyes start to tear up.

"I was young, only thirteen, when I set out to do battle. It is no secret that I was regarded by many as a prodigy with the sword and I was extremely confident in my abilities. Too confident actually."

She stopped for a moment. Keitaro could tell that she was struggling to force out what she was about to say next.

"In my pride I thought to defeat a very powerful demon – one that even my elders would not dare to face alone. I had tracked it to its lair and after minimal preparations went to do battle."

Keitaro blinked. He was having a hard time accepting this story – his rationality telling him that such a thing was the stuff of fantasy, but Tsuruko's face was deadly serious.

Tsuruko sighed as she continued her story.

"I never had a chance to raise my blade. I was ambushed in the dark of the night, infected with some vile poison that robbed my limbs of their strength. I floundered on the ground, struggling to right myself while the monster approached me from the shadows."

Tsuruko had Keitaro's rapt attention at this point.

"The devil tormented me for hours, abusing me, hurling insults upon me and my family. It tried to take everything from me, my body and my mind. Eventually, as the sun rose, it let me go – at the time I thought it was some small mercy, but as the weeks went by I discovered the reason why."

Tsuruko locked a hard glare on Keitaro, almost as if she was challenging him in advance to rebuff what she was going to say.

"The beast let me live because I was pregnant with its seed."

Keitaro's face blanched. His mouth moved to form words, but he was silenced by Tsuruko who simply held up her palm to his face.

"Despite the urgings of my parents, I decided to birth that child and as I held her in my arms I named her…"

Keitaro had a prescient thought that filled him with dread. His stomach did a flip.

Tsuruko continued, her voice soft, almost a whisper.

"I named her Motoko."

Keitaro's eyes went wild and he lost all composure. "Tsuruko!" he shouted in a panic.

"Silence!" bellowed Tsuruko, her previous expression of sadness wiped away with rage.

"This is not easy for me to say and you must hear it! Do you understand? You must!" she punctuated her statement by grabbing Keitaro by his collar.

Keitaro, still confused and shocked, let his body go slack. Eventually Tsuruko calmed down and continued speaking.

"It was decided to raise her as my mother's child. I did not oppose this since the nature of her birth would have caused problems if it was to be too widely known. Some in our clan would see her not just as a monster, but specifically a monster we are sworn to kill."

Tsuruko's voice was hard and cold. Keitaro could tell exactly what would happen to anyone who suggested anything of the sort about the nature of Motoko… her _daughter_.

"Years passed. I completed my task eventually, defeating another _yōkai_ , upholding our families bargain. Motoko-han was treated as my precious sister, always following me and trying her best to emulate her 'Onneesama'. Things were relatively peaceful, at least until that demon came back to find us."

Tsuruko let out a long sigh and tilted her head, her long black hair falling gracefully over her shoulder. Keitaro couldn't tell what she was looking at – perhaps some landmark off in the distance, or perhaps just long forgotten memory. Despite his speculation, he held his tongue and waited.

"We were away from home, visiting…" she paused for a moment, suspiciously even, and then continued. "We were visiting relatives."

"We should have been safe, secure there even, but the monster used his connection with Motoko to lower the protective wards. It was late in the night, long after everyone had gone to sleep when he decided to strike and when he did, he came not alone, but with other members of his tribe."

Tsuruko eyed her sword, her mouth twisting in a grimace.

"While my parents and family members fought off the demons, I searched desperately for Motoko-han. Unfortunately, the monster that raped me found her first. She was small, you understand? Barely six years old… and when he threatened to take her, just like he took me, I lost all sense of control."

Keitaro felt nauseous as he let the implication of Tsuruko's statement sink in. The idea of anyone harming Motoko like that… let alone a small child… The longer he dwelled on the thought, the more he found his sickness turning into rage. He understood, implicitly, how Tsuruko must have felt.

"I was able to seal the beast, but not before he had traumatized Motoko-han and left his mark on her."

Tsuruko pushed herself up from her knees and stood, dusting grass off her hakama. She motioned again for Keitaro to follow.

"Understand that Motoko-han doesn't know any of this. She thinks my parents… _our_ parents, died that night in a car crash," she said.

Despite the shock of Tsuruko's sudden revelation, Keitaro finally managed to find his voice. "So… Motoko-chan doesn't know that you're her…" he struggled over the word, "…mother?"

Tsuruko shook her head as she continued forward with Keitaro towards the lone stone structure in the distance.

"It's my shame," she said in a voice tinged with anguish. "My intentions were good, but in the end I robbed her of a mothers love. Come, there is something else you must see."

Tsuruko stopped in front of the entrance of the shrine. Calling it old wouldn't do justice to the obviously ancient architecture. It looked like something out of an epic _chanbara_ film; pure fantasy conjured from an imaginative mind. Keitaro watched as Tsuruko bowed her head and clapped her hands three times. Softly, she murmured a prayer under her breath and then with a steady gate entered the building with Keitaro in tow.

"This place is a _jiryoudo_ … it's a sacred place where we store items that we have sealed spirits or demons in," she said. "The one I want you to see is over here."

Keitaro followed behind cautiously, watching his footing in the dim interior light. All around him were various charms and wards placed on a variety of objects, most of them large stones or statues of some type or another. To him, it looked like he was simply traveling through the world's largest shop of pre-Edo era masonry. Eventually Tsuruko halted her steps and turned to Keitaro to speak once more.

"This stone holds that demon," she said as she beckoned to a large oval shaped stone. It was encircled by a _shimenawa_ , a traditional type of rope made from rice straw and festooned with multiple _shide_ , essentially paper streamers shaped in a zig-zag "lightning bolt" style. A week ago, Keitaro would have been at a loss to identify either object correctly, but he had since seen Motoko preparing them by herself at the inn.

" _That couldn't be a coincidence, could it? Could her subconscious mind be guiding these actions?"_ he asked himself.

Tsuruko raised a hand over the stone and uttered another prayer; the effect was immediate and caused Keitaro to gasp in shock. If he had his doubts earlier about the veracity of Tsuruko's tale, they were quickly beginning to fade as the stone itself started to radiate a dark blue nimbus of light.

"Observe the structure of the crack running up from the center – that is where the ward from the sealing is breaking," said Tsuruko as she held her hand in place.

Keitaro, still befuddled, slowly drew his face closer. He had to squint through his glasses, but he could make out a series of spindly, almost spider-like cracks emanating through the warded stone.

"What does that mean?" he asked. It seemed to him to be the obvious question.

Tsuruko lowered her hand and the light faded. "This is what concerns Motoko-han. The seal is coming undone."

Keitaro gave Tsuruko an uncomprehending stare. All this… magic and spirits and demons, was far beyond the experience of a modern man such as himself. Tsuruko saw the look on his face and blew out a strong breath; her cheek bulged to the side and then folded her hands into the sleeves of her robes.

"When I said the beast marked Motoko-han, I meant that literally. He marked her as his own, as a conduit for his power. This is a dangerous and old type of magic, if left unchecked it would make her susceptible to…" her voice quavered at this point, "… demonic possession."

Keitaro pinched the bridge of his nose and adjusted his glasses. "This is just too much to believe," he complained. "I mean, I've seen some amazing stuff… I've seen Motoko-chan practically split boulders with a wooden _bokken_ … that should be impossible, right? But this…" he was at a loss for words.

Tsuruko locked a hard stare on Keitaro and ignored his protestations. "It doesn't matter if you believe it or not, it's the truth and it's also the truth that your wife is in danger." Her voice was cold, but with a hint of sharp steel that made Keitaro's stomach leap into his throat.

"She is a _hanyō_ , a half-demon, and the mark on her needed to be defeated. To do so, we sealed away the _yōkai_ side of her nature as well as her memories of that night. Let me ask you this Urashima-san, do you know how far that fall was that the two of you survived?"

Keitaro's memory of the fall itself was mostly non-existent. Other than the sensation of reaching out for Motoko, he couldn't recall a single thing. The doctors at the hospital had assured him however that this was entirely normal – often when people suffered head trauma they lost memories from the moments before the injury. Still, he had never inquired before how far they had actually fallen…

Keitaro shrugged in defeat.

"300 meters," said Tsuruko with a serious face that brooked no argument. Keitaro tried to imagine how far that actually was and came up with several scenarios, most of them involving football fields lined up back to back. Sure, he was _tough_ … but a fall like that, it should be impossible to survive.

"That can't be right," he said. "A drop from that far… we should have been squished like bugs."

Tsuruko nodded and then removed her hand from her sleeve. "This is how you survived," she said as she held a closed palm out towards Keitaro. He moved his own hand under hers and then she let drop what she was holding – a clump of pure white feathers.

"I watched the whole thing," Tsuruko stated. "You fell the first thirty or so meters together, it was brutal and the pair of you bounced off rocks the entire way down. Then you spun out from the face of the cliff, completely over the darkness and began to plummet. I think… I think if it had just been Motoko-han, then it would have ended there."

Keitaro contemplated what Tsuruko was telling him. What did she mean?

"But you were with her and I suspect that as distraught as she was, she couldn't let you share her fate. Motoko-han broke her own seal, at least a little bit. You didn't fall Urashima-san, she _carried_ you to that canyon floor." Tsuruko's voice was filled with such conviction that Keitaro had a hard time trying to deny her. Still, the rational part of his mind refused to give up.

"What do you mean? Like she…" he stared at the feathers in his hand, "What?" he exclaimed. "Are you saying that she _flew_?"

"You are holding the proof," replied Tsuruko with an imperious tone.

"But how?" demanded Keitaro, his mind still reeling from the barrage of insanity Tsuruko was throwing at him.

She smiled softly and then spoke, "Wings… glorious white wings."

Keitaro felt like he had the wind knocked out of him and he reeled backwards on his heels, stumbling until he found himself on the floor. Tsuruko stepped forward towards him, a look of concern on her face. "I'm fine…" he muttered as he waved her off.

"I'm just stunned… this is just too incredible," he stated. Truly, it's not every day that a guy like Keitaro Urashima heard such things.

" _You wife is a half demon, oh and her sister is really her mother and finally, she's in danger of being possessed by evil spirits. Would you like a cup of tea? How about a cracker to go along with it?"_

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. Still, he had questions of his own.

"So, again… why did you tell me all this?" he asked.

Tsuruko offered a hand to Keitaro and helped him up from the ground. When he pulled away, he found that Tsuruko had left a small object in his hand. He carefully examined it, holding it up between his fingers – It looked like a small calcified egg of some sort, perhaps from a bird.

"I'm giving you a choice, one that I cannot make any more because I gave up my rights over my daughter," she said with obvious sadness.

"That egg has been prepared in such a way as to break the remainder of Motoko-han's seal," she stated.

Keitaro looked at the tiny egg and mused, "Why would I want to do that? Isn't that seal keeping her safe from this… _Kotengu_ creature?"

"Yes, but if the seal is broken then it's likely that she will be able to restore her body," replied Tsuruko.

Keitaro felt that there was something more to this, something that she was omitting. He took a gamble and pressed her in return. "And?" he asked, "What else will happen?"

Tsuruko hung her head, "I believe her memory loss is due to the nature of the seal that was placed upon her. Originally it was meant only to seal the memories of that one night, but now it seems to have stolen everything," she turned away from Keitaro in an effort to mask her sadness.

"So… this might not only heal Motoko's body, but her mind as well?" gasped Keitaro. It sounded almost too good to be true.

"Yes, but… it might also erase her memories, or at least… _some of them_ ," added Tsuruko. She carefully made an effort to avoid Keitaro's gaze.

"Some?" he inquired. Obviously, just as he had predicted, there had to be a catch somewhere.

"She may gain back all her memories prior to her… 'accident', specifically from when she started to break her seal, but in exchange, lose all those gained since." Tsuruko sounded somewhat apologetic about that and it took a moment for Keitaro to comprehend why.

"Oh," he said with a stunned voice, "So she might forget everything since the wedding…"

Keitaro winced involuntarily. He didn't know if he could outright admit it yet, at least not openly, but the idea of Motoko forgetting the moments that they had shared over the last couple of months… it made his stomach churn with anxiety.

" _Isn't that selfish thought? What if she has an opportunity to walk again, shouldn't she take that opportunity? Look at all the things she's had to give up… it's not fair, but this might fix it…"_

Tsuruko could see the moral conflict playing out on Keitaro's face. The boy had never been really good at holding his cards to his chest, but she felt it did him some credit that she would so seriously consider what was best for Motoko.

"Let's say that this seal is broken… she's still 'marked' as you said, right? What could happen then?" he asked.

Tsuruko turned her back to gaze again at the warded stone. "We can strengthen the wards here. Dull the creatures influence. Perhaps even train Motoko-han on how to resist."

Keitaro considered this new information. Even if he wanted to give back Motoko her legs or her memories, was that worth the apparent risk? If he said 'no' was he really thinking of her safety, or was he just being selfish and wanting to preserve the status quo of their relationship?

" _Dammit… again I'm expected to have all the answers!"_

Keitaro felt a strong hand rest on his shoulder and he looked up to see Tsuruko smiling awkwardly at him.

"I'm sorry Urashima-san," she said apologetically. "As you said, Motoko-han is your wife and hence this decision is one that you need to make with that in mind."

Keitaro nodded abruptly. He didn't like it, but he knew that Tsuruko was saying – it would be up to him to either guarantee or help Motoko to find her happiness. Either as a swordswoman, or as a wife, but potentially not both.

Tsuruko withdrew her hand and gently guided Keitaro out of the shrine. As they slowly walked their way back down the mountain, she had only one last sentence for him.

"Urashima-san," she whispered, "I want you to know that I've always trusted you when it came to my daughter."

Keitaro thanked her politely and then retreated into his thoughts, only becoming aware again when they reached the part of the path where he and Motoko had made their ill-fated 'leap of faith'. Tsuruko watched him as he carefully made his way to the edge of the cliff in the darkness. The conditions, right down to the moonlight, were almost the same now as they had been then.

Slowly, Keitaro peered over the edge and into the yawning darkness below. He knew he wouldn't find any answers in that pitch black void, but he needed to feel the fear of gazing into the abyss that almost had swallowed him whole.

Now all he needed to do was decide how to climb out.

LH-LH-LH

Authors Note:

So, there was a lot of shinto spiritualism, legends and history in this chapter, huh? I hope people enjoyed the alternate folklore interpretations in this chapter and how it relates to the mysteries of the Shinmei-ryu and our two favorite swordswomen. It was particularly hard to write since it was so dense with information and as I'm sure you noticed, lots and lots of details.

That being said, we are probably over half way through with this story. I'm sure that most of you can tell that I've been building rising action as the plot advances and it will culminate in a decision or two in the future that may have dire consequences for our protagonists. To be entirely truthful, I actually have the final chapter of this story written and on ice (It's one of the reasons why this one came so much later than the others, the other reason being I wrote 2 other chapters for other stories in the intervening time).

Also, I'm very curious that now that I've lain out _everything_ explicitly in this chapter, if there was anyone who didn't know that either Motoko was Tsuruko's daughter, or that Motoko was a _hanyō_? I know a couple of people have sent me PM's previously asking me about this and I affirmed it to them, but I hadn't seen much discussion or questions about it in the reviews, so I wondered if I had been too subtle in dropping all my hints in this story!

Once again, thank you all very much for reading and reviewing this story. It's really encouraging to see so many people write positive reviews or give advice and especially to see how quickly this piece has made it onto so many people's favorite list (it was only started a little over a month ago!)

Until next time…

QC


	10. Chapter 10

She knew that he was lying.

She didn't know how she knew, but she knew all the same. Maybe it was the fact that over the last several weeks she'd come to understand the tell-tale signs of his discomfort. Or maybe it was the sixth sense that she'd developed since returning to the Hinata-sou that confirmed to her that everyone – and she meant _everyone_ was hiding something from her. Whatever the case was, it was moot. She was certain.

Her husband had just left her and lied about why.

Motoko heaved a sigh and pushed the math problems she had been ignoring for the better part of the last hour away from her face. With her "swiss cheese" memory, there was barely any point to studying at the best of times and now was certainly not the "best of times".

Ever since Keitaro left this morning she had been playing over the exchange between them in her mind.

" _I'll only be gone overnight Motoko-chan,"_ said her husband with an awkward smile on his face.

Motoko had frowned, she didn't know why but something was bothering her.

" _Can you give me a number to call in case there is an emergency?"_ she had asked _._

Keitaro had paused for a moment and then waved his hand as if to brush off the question.

" _Just call my mobile phone if you need me. I'll have it on me all the time and that's exactly why I got it,"_ he had replied. Leaving unsaid of course the implication that it was more for the sake of an emergency Motoko might have due to her handicap instead of any problems with the inn.

Motoko hadn't appreciated this response or the general dismissal Keitaro had given her. It was obvious that he was being evasive. When asked where he was going, he had simply replied _"To visit some relatives"_. When asked if she could come along as she had not yet had a chance to greet Keitaro's family, he had simply claimed the trip would be too short. When asked for a phone number where he was staying, she had been redirected to the mobile phone.

Once she could brush off. Twice had bothered her. Now, hours later she realized that three was the magic number that caused her to imagine horrible things when left alone.

Was he cheating on her? It was an obvious question and one that she found highly disturbing. From Motoko's perspective, while her current self may have only "known" Keitaro for a short period, during that time he had claimed a rather large portion of territory in her heart. It was terrifying to think that not only was she physically vulnerable – being mostly confined to a wheel chair, but emotionally exposed as well.

Keitaro had been her rock, long before they had arrived back at the Hinata. The idea that this rock had been resting on sandy shale sent her heart into a tizzy.

" _It can't possibly be true. Keitaro-san isn't the kind of man to do such a thing… he's so bashful and gentle."_

Motoko twirled one of her forelocks in between her fingers and adjusted her seating in her chair. She ruefully acknowledged that if Keitaro wanted to cheat on her, he wouldn't have to go so far as to leave the inn. No, there was more than one girl living under this roof that was smitten with the mild mannered manager and to his credit, Motoko had never seen Keitaro so much as flirt with any of them.

" _Of course, Milk-chan has sure tested him enough on that front…"_ Motoko thought with gritted teeth.

Kitsune, or "Milk-chan" as Motoko had nick-named her, was always full of mischief it seemed and it irritated Motoko to no end that most of it involved sexually harassing her husband. Keitaro was generally good natured about it and shrugged off her advances, but Motoko was finding she was becoming more and more intolerant of the chronically unemployed woman's attempts at getting out of her rent. She swore to herself that if she caught Kitsune planting her husband's hands on her breasts one more time, she'd cut them off – the breasts, not the hands.

Casually she brought her hands up to her own chest, not even bothering to see if anyone else was around.

" _If Oneesama is anything to go by, I should at least have Narusegawa beat within the year."_

Somewhat satisfied with her future prospects in this area, Motoko pushed her chair away from the table and started to wheel herself towards the living room. The issue with Keitaro's mystery trip bothered her to no end, but her rational mind told her that he'd be the last man on earth to betray her like that. In fact, the more she thought about it, she was less actually concerned with this particular incident than she was with the overall feeling that everyone seemed to be withholding something from her.

Just what could it be and how could she find out?

Haruka would be no help. The older woman was infamously tight lipped at the best of times and although Motoko's current self hadn't known her very long, she knew her well enough to acknowledge that the elder Urashima was a woman with enormous self-discipline. There'd be no way she'd spill a secret that she wanted to keep. That left really only the other girls at the Hinata and amongst them they all seemed to be actively avoiding any topic or subject of conversation other than general information relating to before "the accident". This itself was somewhat telling. Who then could she ask?

Narusegawa was, of course, not an option. The other girl avoided Motoko like the plague and she was certain it was because of the relationship between herself and Keitaro. Had they fought previously? Perhaps over Keitaro? Did Naru believe that Motoko had stolen him from her? There was some history here, Motoko was certain of it, but no one was talking.

She had thought at first that Kitsune would have been a good source of information. After all, the woman had a penchant for snooping and eavesdropping, but she was also maddeningly clever. Whenever Motoko tried to steer conversation into areas that she was curious about, the sly fox would only give her hints of the answers she was looking for. Even when Motoko pressed directly, the normally loquacious drunk would suddenly become suspiciously forgetful of details.

This hadn't gone unnoticed by Motoko and it only compounded her worries and suspicions.

This left only the three younger girls – Shinobu, Su and Sarah. While any one of them might be able to fill in some of the gaps for Motoko, she often found it hard to even find them. It seemed that Su and Sarah spent most of their time playing games in the remote corners of the estate and Shinobu, while very much present at the Hinata, would excuse herself to do "chores" whenever Motoko tried to broach topics relating to her past history in anything but the most general way.

If Motoko hadn't known better, and indeed she didn't know better, she would have assumed that someone had given all three of them direct instructions to avoid talking to her without an older resident present. Of course if that was true, then the only person capable of issuing such a demand was Haruka, who, as already established, was the tightest lipped person this side of Sagami bay.

Motoko wheeled herself down the hall, lost in these thoughts her mind was so occupied that she didn't pay attention to the sounds of the television coming from the living room of what should be a currently unoccupied Inn.

"Ara, ara – Motoko-chan what happened?" called a sultry voice with a broad Okinawan accident.

Motoko looked up and came face to face with the most bizarre sight she could ever recall seeing. Sitting there on the living room floor, dress askew and with a hint of panties exposed, was a woman collapsed in a heap, surrounded by an odd assortment of watermelons adorned with multi-coloured bows, as if they were Christmas presents several months too early.

The woman brushed her long brown hair from her face and tried to right herself.

Motoko could see the accident waiting to happen as the stranger shifted her standing leg next to a precariously placed watermelon. She was about to call out, when all of a sudden she received her second shock in just about as many seconds.

Her mind froze. Her pulse quickened. Her eyes went wild. Her arm flew out and her hand pointed an accusatory digit at the evil _thing_ creeping… no, that's not right, it was _flying_ up behind the other woman. Motoko tried to warn the strange girl, but the only word that came out was a choked complaint….

"T-T-T-TURTLE!"

LH-LH-LH-LH-LH

Naru Narusegawa sat alone on an abandoned park bench and stared lazily at the budding trees above. The sunshine, already bright this early in the morning, was a sharp contrast to the mood that had been following her around for the last couple of months.

"It's all that _baka's_ fault," she muttered under her breath.

She was lying. She knew that much, but unfortunately right now lying to herself was all she could do. She had a chance, once, to respond to Keitaro's feelings with her own – but that chance seemed to evaporate literally overnight and nothing, no matter how desperately she begged or wished, would bring it back.

At first she had been shocked and in a state of denial. She had been confident that there was no way Tsuruko's little shot-gun marriage could be legal, but she had underestimated the financial and political resources of the Aoyama clan. Still, she held out hope that Motoko and Keitaro didn't really care for each other, so once everything settled down and tempers cooled, Keitaro would figure out a way to make everything right again. After all, that was the reason why she loved the idiot so much – he was hapless, usually dense and always in trouble, but somehow he always managed to pull through when she needed him to.

It probably would have worked out too, if it hadn't been for Motoko losing her memory and happily diving into the role of Keitaro's wife.

Naru sniffled once and wiped away an errant tear. Whenever she thought about Keitaro and Motoko together, which due to living at the Hinata was damn well nearly every hour of the day, her emotions erupted unbidden. Rage. Despair. It was all the same – She was poor at controlling her feelings under normal conditions, but day by day having to endure seeing the man she loved married to a stranger wearing the face of her friend was slowly driving her to the brink.

"I might have to move out," she said to no one in particular.

"Ara?" came the reply.

Naru wiped her nose with the back of her hand and looked up in a hurry and a familiar face, wearing a look of concern, greeted her glistening eyes.

"Na-chan? What's wrong? Did you and Kei-kun have another fight?" asked the woman.

Naru didn't know if she should be surprised or not. Otohime Mutsumi had a strange way of showing up that seemed to be guided either by fate or by chaos theory, but one thing was sure – when she did, "things" would happen. These things weren't _always_ good, but they usually they had a profound impact – particularly on the romantic situation between Naru and Keitaro.

Naru cleared her throat and spoke. "You could say that…"

Of course, that was the understatement of the year.

Mutsumi brushed out her long green dress and took the empty seat next to Naru. She put a calm hand on her friends arm and gave her a look of empathy and understanding.

"What was it this time? Groping? Peeping? Accidently slathering himself with mayonnaise and wearing your underwear on his head while chasing Shinobu-chan around the house with a large banana?"

Naru cocked an eye and began to respond before she bit her own tongue. Pointedly ignoring Mutsumi's overly descriptive scenario of Keitaro's imaginary transgressions, she considered for a moment what she should tell her friend. Hell, she wondered what she _could_ tell her and not run afoul of Haruka.

Mutsumi noticed Naru's hesitation and narrowed her eyes in a furious attempt to "think". It was quite a challenge for the normally airheaded Okinawan, but she wasn't about to give up.

"Wait… I was close with the underwear wasn't I?" she asked.

Naru shook her head violently.

Mutsumi pondered for a moment and then her normally sleepy eyes went wide.

"DON'T TELL ME IT WASN'T A BANANA?" she gasped while bringing her hands to the side of her face.

Naru reached out and put her hands over Mutsumi's. It was time to end this train of thought before it went too much further off the rails.

"It's not that Mutsumi-chan… It's just…"

Naru struggled internally for a moment, then continued.

"Look… why don't you talk to Keitaro about it first?" she finally said. It was the safest bet – that way, Keitaro could decide how much he wanted to tell Mutsumi and if the vapid girl accidently let something slip, well it wouldn't be her fault.

Mutsumi didn't look too pleased by the answer, but nodded slowly anyway. She knew that Na-chan wasn't always so forthcoming about her feelings, but she also knew that her friend dearly loved Kei-kun. She was certain of it, so much so that she never once felt sad about giving him away to her.

For Mutsumi, so long as her friends were happy, then she could be happy too, even if it meant she'd never find a love of her own.

"Well, I have been meaning to drop off some gifts ever since Kei-kun broke his leg…" Mutsumi mused out loud. Truthfully, she really had meant to visit him in the hospital, but both times she had tried she had ended up lost. Sadly, it was a common occurrence for her.

Naru was about to tell her friend that Keitaro was out of town today – he had left early that morning for a trip to Kyoto, but suddenly she closed her mouth and thought.

" _Wait… the only person who should be home right now is… Motoko?"_

This was an opportunity, and Naru knew it. With Keitaro gone and Motoko home alone, if Mutsumi just happened to show up…

"I'm sure he'll be happy to see you," she said, just a little too briskly.

It was a pretty low thing to do and she _did_ feel slightly guilty about it, but at the same time it was entirely unreasonable for Haruka to demand that they keep such a colossal secret from Motoko. And it wasn't like Motoko herself wasn't curious – she had heard the girl ask several pointed questions over the last couple of weeks that demonstrated that even she knew "something" was up.

Wasn't this actually doing Motoko-chan a favour? How long could Haruka really expect everyone to lie to the poor girl?

Naru desperately held on to that last thought as she waved to her departing friend. Still, she might decide to eat dinner out tonight… just in case.

It wouldn't be good to appear too soon at the "scene of the crime" looking and feeling guilty.

LH-LH-LH-LH-LH

"Myu?" eeped one particularly intelligent terrapin of the "hot springs" genus at no one in particular.

Motoko, her body still involuntarily shaking in fear, tried to fumble for the wheels of her chair in a furious effort to remove herself from the scene, only to find her fingers grasping at air and her limbs trembling in terror.

"Oh Tama! There you are!" exclaimed Mutsumi as she dramatically patted her billowing brown hair. The turtle, Tama-chan as she was known, was resting inelegantly on the crown of the Okinawan girls head and peering quizzically at the scene before her.

"Ara? Motoko-chan?" asked Mutsumi as she noticed the other girls desperate disposition.

Without hesitation, Mutsumi patted her head, shifting Tama-chan into some unknown (and possibly extra dimensional) space and out of sight. She knew that Motoko didn't like turtles, but she hadn't seen her react so violently to the mere sight of one before.

"It's okay, Tama doesn't mean any harm…" said Mutsumi softly as she tried for the third time to pick herself up off the ground.

With the offending creature out of sight, Motoko finally had a chance to calm down and think. Who was this strange woman in the house? Why were there watermelons all over the floor? And why the hell was she so terrified of a tiny little turtle?

" _It was so creepy… and its eyes… beady little eyes like a demon."_

With one last shudder, Motoko composed herself and found her voice.

"Ahem… excuse me?" she said, still slightly shaken, "Who are you?"

"Ara?" puzzled Mutsumi. What a strange question. Was this some sort of game?

Snapping her fingers, Mutsumi lowered herself down to Motoko's eye level and smiled.

"Who are _you_?" she asked cheerfully, certain that this was how the game was played.

Motoko blinked. Didn't this woman already call out her name? Why would she ask such a question?

" _What if… what if this is one of those metaphysical types of questions? Who am I? Do I really know?"_

It was a question that she had asked herself countless times since she had awoken months ago in that hospital room, but one that recently she had been almost afraid to find the answer to. Without realizing it, Motoko began to judge Mutsumi in a new light. Instead of a clumsy and odd girl appearing in her living room, perhaps she was simply _very_ "zen".

Was this apparently strange woman really some sort of overly voluptuous Okinawan Buddha?

" _Wait… why do all the older girls that show up here all have such enormous breasts?"_

Motoko shook her head to banish the thought. She didn't have time for her insecurities right now. She felt instinctively as if she had been handed an opportunity for enlightenment – or at least, someone who knew her, or knew of her, that she hadn't actually met before. It was a rare chance.

Still, she worried about what she'd find out so she hesitated for a moment before continuing.

"Who would you say I am?" she asked – the hesitation clear in her voice.

LH-LH-LH-LH-LH

Haruka lazily strolled up the winding path behind the tea house towards the Hinata-sou. It was almost lunch time and while Motoko was clearly capable of feeding herself, business had been slow today so the former "dorm mother" decided to pay a visit to her new in-law by excuse of dropping off an _obento_ for the younger girl.

If Haruka was honest about her feelings, and she seldom was, she would admit that she actually rather enjoyed the company of her nephews new wife. It was a strange experience – Haruka had known Motoko since she had graduated from middle school and first came to the Hinata, but the girl now living under their roof, although she had the same name and face, only vaguely resembled her former self.

Haruka didn't want to outright say that the "new" Motoko was an improvement… but, she could safely say that she had never gotten quite as close to the old one who had lived here for the last couple of years.

" _Keitaro seems to be handling it well. Maybe I was worried over nothing? Heck, come to think of it… with Motoko-chans change in attitude, as strange as it is to say it, she's easily the most "normal" girl that lives here now."_

Haruka smirked at that thought as she took the last two steps up to the door of the inn. Her opinion on the matter of Motoko's abrupt change in personality wasn't a very popular one among the residents. Most of them, even if they never said it outright, were merely counting the days until the "old Motoko" came back. You could tell by the way they interacted with her – keeping her at arms-length like she was a stranger, but not quite so far as to be overtly rude. Only Shinobu-chan had seemed to warm up to the girl, but given the shy little cooks general good nature, this was only to be expected.

" _I wonder what Kei thinks about that? Does he want the old Motoko back? Is he happy with the way things are going? Ugh…. Do I really want to know how 'things' are going?"_

While Keitaro's opinions on the "authenticity" of his relationship with Motoko were still very much an unknown quantity, Haruka – if she was reading the situation correctly, was pretty sure that if Motoko continued on her present course, within a year or so they'd be greeting a new Urashima at the Hinata. It was a bizarre thought, because while she might be able to imagine Motoko as a mother someday, the mental image of Keitaro as a father was just too weird for her brain to cope with.

Opening the door to the Sou, Haruka turned through the foyer and was about to call out for Motoko when she heard a voice coming from the living room. No, scratch that – it was two voices. She raised one of her eyebrows, curious because no one but Motoko should be here today, and proceeded in the direction of the conversation.

"Oh, I just came by to drop off these gifts and wish Kei-kun well," said a voice in a distinctively broad Okinawan accent that could only belong to Otohime Mutsumi.

" _Wait? Why is Mutsumi-chan here?_ " wondered Haruka. Her body however, was one step ahead of her brain and immediately she began to pick up pace.

" _Wait! Mutsumi-chan is here!"_

Haruka wasn't a woman prone to panic, but the inveterate airhead and childhood friend of both Naru and Keitaro hadn't been around for months, so clearly she wouldn't know about the current situation and the amount of information she could let slip… well, it was dangerous and clearly exactly the type of material that Motoko's doctor had warned about.

"By the way, do you know why Kei-kun and Na-chan are fighting again? Ara, those two – I never know if they're going to get together or not!"

"Shit!" swore Haruka, her cigarette dangling precipitously from her drawn lips as she rounded the corner and barrelled into the room.

"Oh hey!" she blurted out, completely at a loss for words but needing desperately to stop the current conversation.

Both of the other girls turned to face Haruka, but Motoko quickly turned her head back. Haruka had seen that look before – she'd worn it herself enough. Motoko was annoyed, maybe even a little pissed off. Haruka wondered how much damage the ditzy turtle girl had already done.

"What were you saying about Keitaro-san and Narusegawa-san?" asked Motoko, her voice clear and firm.

Mutsumi looked startled for a moment, the distractions too much for her scatterbrained sense to follow.

"Oh, right… I ran into Na-chan in the park and she was crying…"

Haruka took a loud step forward.

"Ah, that girl!" she exclaimed, "She's so emotional, isn't she?"

She had tried to make the statement sound like a jest, but being someone unaccustomed to jesting, or even making small conversation, it sounded so awkward as to immediately arouse Motoko's suspicion. As such, she turned back to Haruka and gave her such an awful look. It was a look that clearly said, _"I know what you are doing!"_

Mutsumi, easily distracted, began to follow along that topic of conversation, but Motoko wasn't having any of it. Haruka's pitiful attempts at misdirection had flicked some yet unknown switch inside the girl and she pressed forward.

"We were talking about Keitaro-san and Narusegawa-san. You said she was crying over Keitaro-san?" asked Motoko, leaning forward in her chair.

Mutsumi pivoted her head back and forth between Motoko and Haruka; unsure as to whom she was supposed to answer. Haruka contemplated this moment of indecisiveness and her available options in dealing with the problem at hand. Sadly, most of them involved punching or kicking – Haruka wasn't the best at talking herself out of problems, that was more Kitsune's style. Fortunately for both her and Mutsumi, the solution to the problem poked its shiny little head out of the latter's hair.

"Myu?" asked Tama-chan as she erupted from Mutsumi's bangs and directly into the face of Motoko, who as fate would have it, was leaning forward at the time. The results were frenetic and predictable, with Motoko reduced to a quivering mess in barely the amount of time it took for Mutsumi to mutter a puzzled, "Ara? Ara?"

" _Huh, how about that?"_ thought Haruka as she watched events unfold. " _She lost her memory, but somehow she's still afraid of turtles?"_

Somehow, almost miraculously, the day had been saved. Haruka let out an earnest sigh and went about salvaging the situation as best she could.

LH-LH-LH-LH-LH

Dinner was a sullen affair. Haruka had quickly ushered Mutsumi on her way, insisting that Motoko was injured and needed her rest but assuring that she'd have Keitaro call as soon as he came back to the inn. It was a delaying tactic at best, but for now it'd have to do. Narusegawa, mercifully, had never showed up for dinner and while that was a small blessing, the situation was still far from good.

Haruka wasn't sure exactly what kind of information Motoko had gotten out of Mutsumi today, but whatever it was had obviously fouled her mood. Her behaviour at dinner alternatively consisted of stabbing her food violently with her chopsticks, or staring daggers at everyone around the table. The atmosphere was getting so oppressive that Haruka felt that if she didn't somehow diffuse the situation quickly, poor timid Shinobu would crack under the pressure and do something strange.

And lord knows Haruka didn't need any more "strangeness" to deal with today.

"Kitsune," ventured Haruka, "Why don't you take the girls down to the tea-shop and give them some dessert."

Before the fox could respond, Su piped up, "But I haven't even finished dinner yet!"

Sarah and Shinobu, both aware that something was going down, simply looked at the older Urashima with pleading eyes.

"Make it a banana split sundae," added Haruka.

Su immediately put down her chopsticks and pushed her plate away.

"Well, I'm done. Let's go!" she exclaimed as she turned on her heel and made way for the door.

While Sarah slowly slid in behind to follow her playmate, Shinobu gave Haruka a look of relief. Being more gentle in nature and more aware of other people's feelings, the shy girl was simply at her limit and grateful for the chance to escape – even if her dinner wasn't done. In mere moments, with Kitsune bringing up the rear, the rest of the current residents had departed leaving only Haruka and Motoko staring at each other across the now abandoned dinner table.

There was a long drawn out silence as the two women faced off with each other. Motoko went to move her mouth twice, but each time stopped. Clearly she was frustrated, but trying to find the right words to express as much. Haruka simply waited. She worked best when she didn't talk much.

Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, Motoko spoke.

"Tell me why Keitaro-san and I got married," she stated bluntly.

Haruka kept her poker face and responded quickly.

"It was an arranged marriage."

"I know that!" spit out Motoko, "Who arranged it?"

"Your family," replied Haruka with a terse tone. Even now, Tsuruko's antics were still a rather large sore point with her.

Motoko chose her next words carefully.

"Were we _forced_ into it?" she said with emphasis.

Haruka paused for a moment, considering how to answer.

"It's not like either of you were even dating anyone else…" she said casually.

Motoko's eyebrows wrinkled.

"That wasn't an answer to my question…" she muttered, a clear tone of exasperation in her voice.

She knew that she and Keitaro were in an arranged marriage. That wasn't a huge secret. She had also known that they had lived here, together, for at least a year under the same roof. She assumed that they were on somewhat friendly terms, and secretly she suspected that she might have harboured a crush on him due to finding her own writings. But still… something seemed off.

" _What does Keitaro-san think of me?"_

That was the question that Motoko wanted to have answered. It was the question that had been rolling around in the back of her head for weeks now. It was the question that made her worry so much when he had gone off this morning telling her obvious half-truths.

It was the question that any girl who was in love wanted to know.

Sure, he had said to her that they were in love. But what did that really mean? Was it one sided? Was he saving her feelings? Or was it true? Did it happen before or after the _omiai_? And where the hell did Narusegawa fit into all this?

Motoko clenched her fists. The irritable brunette irked her to no ends – she knew that Narusegawa had some feelings for her husband, but what if…

Suddenly, the question came to her and she leaned across the table, both anxious and fearful for what was to come next.

"Were Keitaro-san and Narusegawa-san in love?" she asked.

Haruka was never more thankful for her perennial poker face than she was now. This was probably the last question that she wanted to answer, but also the very root of all the problems hounding everyone. The smart thing to do here would be to lie. Haruka knew that and had even instructed her nephew to do so if pressed. She had never considered that her own penchant for blunt honesty and dislike for weasel words would be the impetus for letting out the truth.

"I think they were," she said simply.

The stunned look on Motoko's face made up the bulk of her immediate reply.

LH-LH-LH-LH-LH

A/N:

Well, the truth can't stay hidden forever, can it? I thought of a few different ways to get to this revelation before I hit upon this one. I'm fairly happy with it, plus it allows me to put Mutsumi in as a cameo. I like her as a character (she's funny) and I really want to do some sort of treatment for all of the major Love Hina characters and _technically_ she's one of the potential romantic leads of the show, so when you combine all those factors together I think she needs to have some role in this story – and what a role it was too.

Things are obviously about to hit a turning point. I wonder what will be awaiting Keitaro when he finally returns from Kyoto?


	11. Intermission - Part 1

Introducing an intermission to "One Thousand Cranes" featuring Aoyama Tsuruko.

"Things that go bump in the night".

Or

"How the Swordswoman met her match."

PART ONE

Aoyama Tsuruko, heir to the _Shinmei-ryū_ , strolled lazily along the garden path behind the main dojo. It was spring and the mountain that she and her ancestors had long since called home was in full bloom, even the savage winds that so harshly ravaged the mountainside during the winter months had long since given way to a cool, but refreshing breeze that hinted at warmth yet to come.

" _Ah! It's so peaceful to be back at home…"_ she reflected as she came across one of the many well-manicured _koi_ ponds that dotted the family estate. The brightly coloured fish, many of them older than she was, leapt and danced towards the surface of the water as they partook in their morning meal. No matter how many times Tsuruko watched their acrobatic display, she never tired of the spectacle.

With a smile gracing her lips, she turned and resumed her walk towards the main practice hall. Although she had just returned from a mission and was due to have a period of rest, she found herself eager to resume her duties as an instructor. Partly this was because it was perhaps in Tsuruko's nature to be a teacher – the role of _Sensei_ was something she was well suited for, but if she was honest the largest and deciding factor was that she missed a certain prize student and couldn't wait any longer to see her.

" _Yes, today will be a great day!"_ she thought to herself as she entered the ancient building, her mood bright and filled with joy and expectations.

Sadly, they were expectations that were not to be met.

"What are you doing!?" she bellowed, her face flush with anger.

The target of Tsuruko's ire was ironically enough the aforementioned "prize student", a willowy slip of a girl by the name of Aoyama Motoko. She was known to everyone at the dojo for being both incredibly talented as well as having a temper equivalent to a volcano on a steady boil.

Both traits were something the supposed Aoyama "sisters" shared.

"B-but Onee-sama!" complained Motoko as she looked nervously to the side, obviously flustered at being chastised by the elder sister she idolized so much.

"No Motoko! No 'buts'!" returned Tsuruko as she clenched her fists.

She stomped noisily across the room and knocked the _bokken_ , a small wooden practice sword, out of the younger girl's hand. It clattered noisily on the floor, causing the rest of the students who were witnessing the exchange to reflexively cringe.

"How many times have I told you? How many times have I said to not aim for the head?"

Tsuruko was in Motoko's face now and the shorter girl was having trouble levelling their eyes to meet.

"I'm sorry…" whispered Motoko, her face crimson with shame.

"Is sorry going to fix that gash on Reika-chan's head? If sorry fixed everything, there'd be no need for police!"

Tsuruko stopped for a moment, impressed that she had managed to deliver one of her father's corny lines with a straight face. She was even more impressed that it seemed to have some sort of effect on Motoko – you'd be hard pressed to notice it if you were just a scant few feet away, but Tsuruko could tell that the young girl was on the verge of crying.

Closing her eyes for a moment, Tsuruko tried to calm down. She had a duty here, both as a sensei as well as an elder.

" _And as a mother too…"_ she fleetingly thought.

"Motoko…" she said slowly, "you will run ten times around the compound and then you will wash the baths before you can eat. After that you will polish the floor of the dojo and then repeat your run before you can sleep."

While to anyone else such a punishment would have been terrible, Motoko instead looked relieved. Tsuruko noticed the reaction and then added hastily, "And you will not be allowed to practice for a week."

"W-what!?" Motoko stammered, her eyes as big as saucers. "But… but… please, please Onee-sama!

Inwardly Tsuruko sighed. She didn't like being so harsh to Motoko, but she reasoned that it was necessary if she was to break the girl of her hot headed and arrogant nature.

" _I'm sorry Motoko… this is for your own good. I love you."_

"Go now before I make it two weeks!" she bellowed, her hand rising up above the pleading girl.

To her credit, Motoko didn't argue or wait to see if that hand would come down. Instead she left immediately at a brisk jog to begin her punishment.

Tsuruko shook her head slowly and then returned to face the rest of the class. She could see their judgement written on the grimaces of every child present, _"How could she do that to her own sister?"_

Of course, Tsuruko knew it was worse than that. She had done it to her own _daughter_.

" _So much for spending quality time with Motoko…"_ complained Tsuruko as she finished the last bit of her dinner. The meal itself was fine, but given the circumstances of the day, it tasted like ash in her mouth.

Truthfully, Tsuruko was at her wits end as to what to do with the girl. She loved Motoko, loved her so much that she could die, but she dare not show it. How could she? She had spent the last dozen years pretending her daughter was her sister and now the fiction was so firmly set in the minds of everyone, including Motoko, that any change to the status quo was unthinkable.

If Motoko's attitude was a result of the deaths of Tsuruko's parents and her feelings of being abandoned by her "mother", then there was little Tsuruko the "sister" and heir to the _Shinmei-ryū_ could do about it. So instead of going to Motoko's room tonight and comforting her, she'd simply retire to her own lonely futon and listen through the wall to her daughters crying.

Just as Tsuruko was about to clear her dishes, a voice called out for her from behind.

"Tsuruko-sama, a message has come for you," said an attendant, one of many that performed the necessary duties at the family estate.

Tsuruko cocked an eye. The man was bearing a scroll that bore a very specific wax seal, one that she recognized immediately. Messages like this didn't come frequently, at least not the type she knew the servant was holding. She received it with much trepidation and dismissed the man.

Once alone she unfurled the scroll and began to read. Quickly her eyes scanned the spidery scrawl, parsing each sentence and struggling to comprehend the details that were of immediate importance. She had long ago learned that in her line of work it paid to look for meaning in words that others would simply take at face value.

" _This is bad…_ " she thought, a small seed of fear displacing her dinner in the pit of her stomach.

Her first instinct was to seek help from allies, perhaps even the _Onmyodo_ , as the magic users would be of particular use against the threat she suspected was at the root of the problem. However this would take time and if the message was correct, and she sensed that it was, this was a luxury that she couldn't afford.

Making up her mind, she tucked the scroll into her belt and strode towards her quarters. She'd pack tonight and leave before dawn. With luck, she'd only be gone a few days. With Luck, she'd be able to come home to Motoko.

" _Luck… what luck do I have? Never have I had an ounce of it in my life,"_ she lamented as she gathered up her things for the long journey ahead. All she had wanted to do was to spend some time with her daughter, to teach her the family art, to watch her grow, to help her succeed - to protect her, to love her, to show her that she cared.

And now, once again, all she could do was to steal a glance at Motoko's sleeping face as she departed in the wee hours of the morning towards another dangerous mission that very well might be her last.

 **LH-LH-LH-LH**

Special Inspector Nakimura Keima stood at attention on the platform, neck rigid and scanning the throng of arriving passengers. The _Shinkansen_ from Kyoto to Gunma had just pulled up, and while the duration of the trip was a blisteringly fast three hours, he was on a tight schedule. He briefly considered rushing to the rail office and asking to borrow some paper to make a sign, but before he could act upon this impulse, a vision of red and white floated past him.

"Excuse me!" he called out, the woman – a tall beauty wearing a traditional outfit turned to face him, an expectant look on her face.

"Aoyama-san?" he questioned with a short bow. He had been given a rough description of the woman before him, but no one had mentioned to him how beautiful she was. Was this _really_ the "specialist" that his boss had asked him to greet?

The woman gracefully returned Keima's sloppy bow, her hand never leaving the long _nodachi_ katana she held. Keima couldn't help but think for a moment that it was in direct violation of the Firearm and Sword Possession Control Law. He hoped his boss, the Superintendent, knew what he was doing.

"I'm Nakimura," he addressed the younger woman, "My boss, the Chief has asked me to drive you to the site."

Tsuruko seemed to consider this for a moment, a question starting form on her lips, but she let it pass with a nod. She didn't know how much this man knew of the situation she was about to enter and rather than asking questions that might cause him to question her sanity, she decided to stay silent. Experience had taught her that while the police and government often called for help in matters like this, not everyone in the service believed in spirits, demons or other things that went bump in the night.

As Nakimura guided Tsuruko out of the station and towards the long black town car, an obvious government issue, he tried to engage in small talk.

"How was the _Shinkansen_?" he ventured with a slight warble in his voice. He silently cursed himself for seeming uncool.

Tsuruko's response, in contrast, was light and her voice was pleasant.

"It was wonderful. Thank you for providing such luxurious transportation."

Keima opened the car door for Tsuruko, his hand gesturing for her to enter. Even if he sounded like a nervous kid, he'd at least pretend to be gallant.

Once Tsuruko was seated, he entered from the other side and turned over the engine. Within moments they were on the long expressway and heading towards the outskirts of Gunma.

"Have you gotten the full briefing?" he asked as he guided the car past some slow moving traffic.

Tsuruko raised her eyebrows. "Have _you_ gotten the full briefing?" she asked curiously.

To his credit, Keima just laughed. He suspected he knew why Aoyama-san was so reticent to talk. Hell, if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes…

"I was on the site when we lost our men," he explained, "So in that regards I'm…"

Tsuruko finished for him, "The only witness."

Keima swallowed once and nodded. He didn't need to be asked and simply launched into the retelling of events.

 **LH-LH-LH-LH**

Mount Haruna in the southern part of Gunma prefecture was a place rife with deep cultural and spiritual significance to the people of Japan. It's shrine, one of the oldest in the country had been the initial centre of traffic to the region, but over time and as the country modernized a variety of resorts, hotels and onsens sprung up along the mountain side, each one seeking to take advantage of the tourist draw and the beautiful natural caldera lake that sat beside the mountain peaks.

As such, the police in the area were more used to dealing with the occasionally rowdy vacationer or local delinquents, so when the call came to investigate odd noises coming from a run-down hotel on the outskirts of Ikaho village, Nakimura Keima and his colleagues thought nothing much of it.

" _It's probably just some local punks having a party."_

The tourism business was notoriously fickle. At any given time a half dozen or so establishments surrounding the mountain would be in between owners or otherwise abandoned, making them the ideal place for the local disaffected youth to gather in their attempts to stave off the boredom of village life. Usually these things went a certain way – Keima would show up with a few fellow officers, they would shine their lights in some faces and then pile the kids into the back of a van and take them to the station for their parents to pick up. It was an annoying task, but slightly more exciting than sitting bored out of your mind in a police box.

"I hope those kids have some good stuff," said the man in the passenger seat, a large brute of a man named Sakamoto.

"Tch," replied Keima, clicking his tongue. He didn't particularly care for Sakamoto, or for his habit of confiscating alcohol from minors, only to repurpose it for after work drinking sessions.

"Don't mind Keima," came a voice from the rear of the van, "He still thinks he's working in Tokyo."

Keima grimaced as the other men had a laugh at his expense. His removal from his post in Tokyo and reassignment, technically banishment, to this remote part of Gunma, was still a sore point.

One of the other men piped up, "Hey Nakimura, maybe you'll see a ghost this time too?"

Keima gripped the steering wheel tighter as the men had another round of laughter. He had no idea how the details around his last post had been leaked, but within a week of arriving at his new post it seemed everyone knew of his shame.

" _Until the day I die, I'll swear I know what I saw… not that it does me any good."_

The van slowly navigated the corner of the twisting mountain road. There were no street lights up here, but the sky was thankfully clear and bright. It wasn't long before the edifice of the abandoned hotel came into sight.

"Hmm. Looks empty," stated Sakamoto from the front seat, "Maybe they left already?"

"Too bad Saka-chin, looks like no _sake_ for us tonight," added another man with a laugh.

Keima refrained from adding a comment of his own and instead coasted the vehicle up to the front gate, shutting off the engine, but leaving the lights on.

Without any further words, the men piled out of the van and each took hold of his respective flashlight. The hotel was in worse shape than they had originally thought, particularly for a building that should only have been vacant for a year. It was hard to make out, but it appeared that there had been a fire at some point on the top floors – much of the roof was missing. Thankfully it hadn't spread to the surrounding forest.

"Nakimura, stay here with the van," stated Sakamoto. Technically he was the senior officer, so giving orders such as this was natural – however Keima was certain it was simply because if they found any alcohol or drugs they didn't want him around to snitch if some of it didn't make its way back to the evidence locker.

Keima bit his tongue and nodded. His penchant for following the rules wasn't worth ostracizing himself any further with his co-workers. As he watched the backs of the departing men slipping into the night, he lit a cigarette and leaned back against the van.

" _Damn it's quiet out here,"_ he thought to himself.

It was summer, and while the mountain was never particularly noisy after dusk, still there should be some sound and the absence of it made the hairs on his neck stand up. Obviously if there were partygoers here, or hoodlums vandalizing the building, they had long since departed.

" _Hell, I wish I could leave too… maybe I should just quit and find a new job rather than be stuck here doing this kind of garbage. This isn't why I joined the police."_

Keima finished his cigarette and went to reach for another. His fingers had just grasped around the cotton filter when his attention was focused on the loud report of a gun going off.

"Shit!" he exclaimed as he instinctively ducked down next to the wheel of the van, sending his cigarette flying into the dark night.

Within seconds, the gunfire increased – one, two – three more shots. Then silence.

It took a moment for him to recover his wits. Gunfire was rare, incredibly rare – even police officers were expected to not discharge their firearms except in the direst of circumstances. However, from where Keima was sitting it sounded as if there had just been a shoot-out. He considered his next choice of actions and then carefully removed his own service weapon from its holster.

Gun in hand, he reached in through the window of the van and killed the lights. It took some time for his eyes to adjust, but he hid behind a large solid part of the hotel gate. He had to make a conscious effort to still his breathing as he listened for any sound.

After a long minute with no one returning, he went for his radio and with a whisper reported the situation. The operator on the other side made him repeat himself three times, not that he could blame her – he was actually here and he didn't believe it himself.

The wise thing to do would be to wait for backup. It would be the correct thing to do "by the rules" and Nakimura Keima had spent a lifetime following the rules.

" _And what did that ever get me?"_

Steeling his nerves, he slipped past the wrought iron gate and crouched low as he approached the building. The moonlight was bright and it casted long shadows from the trees that dotted the central courtyard. Keima crept from shadow to shadow as he approached the main entrance, noticing that the door was clearly ajar.

" _They must have come this way – the door looks broken, and recently too."_

He took a deep breath and held it. In the next few seconds he'd have to make up his mind, to cross the threshold or to circle around the back and look for another entrance. He knew logically that at this point he was facing an unknown situation regardless of what course he set. If anything, this decision all came down to guts – make the call now, or delay it for just a few more minutes.

He chose the former.

With a small amount of effort, Keima used his free hand to mantle up and over the railing on the hotel porch. Landing soundlessly and in a crouch, he made his way over to the open door and listened for any signs of movement, however the night was still as soundless as it had been before the gunshots had interrupted its eerie stillness.

Carefully he passed the threshold, his gun held at the ready.

The interior of the hotel was dimly lit. The long curtains had been mostly pulled down, allowing for faint beams of moonlight to filter through the smudged and dirty exterior windows. Keima waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness before continuing along to the main hall.

 _Crash._

There was a sound coming from his left, a sound like a bucket or a pan hitting the ground. Keima pivoted his stance and took cover.

" _That must be the direction of the kitchen? It could be an animal, or…_ "

Keima froze for a moment and considered that he might not be the only one "stalking" this place tonight.

For the second time he overruled his better judgement and stealthily approached the source of the sound. The kitchen doors were the kind that swung inward on hinges, meaning he could enter easily enough, but they provided no cover for peaking. He laid his back against the wall and listened…

 _Tap… tap… tap…_

Steeling his courage and gripping his weapon tightly in both hands, Keima leapt into action. With a fluid movement he backed and swivelled through the swinging kitchen doors, dropping into a proper firing stance only to find himself face to face with a large shape – a man, silhouetted in the darkness.

"Stop there! Police!" he identified himself as he drew his eye down the sight of his gun.

The shambling man stepped forward and Keima nearly fired off a shot. The only thing holding him back was the nagging feeling in the back of his head that something was wrong, _incredibly wrong_ , with this situation.

Another step followed, and the man's face came into view – illuminated by a stray beam of moonlight.

"Sakamoto?" puzzled Keima, relief and confusion mixed in his voice.

He lowered his gun and stood up.

"What's going on? Who fired those shots?" he asked in a hushed whisper.

Sakamoto didn't respond. He simply took another step forward.

Keima was about to holster his weapon, his arm going to his side, when he noticed something peculiar - something that could easily explain why Sakamoto wasn't responding to him.

The other man was missing a large portion of his neck, as if it had been blown away at close range by a gun. Blood was still flowing from the wound, dripping down the front of his uniform and trailing behind him on the kitchen floor. Keima almost didn't notice it, but the man's eyes were glazed over and his mouth seemed to be foaming with an unidentifiable black substance.

He stumbled backwards, his gun coming up once again.

"Stop!" he cried as he tripped, sprawling on his rear before the larger man.

Keima caught view of a glint of light in the darkness, a brief flash of illumination on a large kitchen blade as Sakamoto brought it down towards him.

A normal man's first instinct would have been to dodge, or to at least bring up his arms to divert the blow, but Nakimura Keima wasn't a particularly normal man. His father had been a police officer and his grandfather a soldier, both men having instilled in him from an early age on how to deal with danger.

He fired off three rounds in quick succession – one smashing the arm that held the knife, one slamming into the torso of the zombie like Sakamoto, and the last one taking off the greater portion of his former colleagues head.

Despite missing part of his brain, despite the huge wound in his neck and the new one in his chest, it was only the shot to the arm that seemed to stall Sakamoto. The bullet had somehow caused him to lose grip on the knife and it went clattering to the floor. Still, his advance was not halted and he quickly fell about Keima, his fists swinging with an unearthly strength.

Keima fired off four more rounds at the larger man. The attack didn't drop him, but the shock or force seemed to draw him back. Without hesitation, Keima leapt to his feet and ran from the kitchen.

" _Fuck! Who's going to believe this!"_ he lamented as he broke over the gate and towards the van.

Of course, it wasn't until the next day, when the second group of officers sent to investigate didn't return, that anyone had time to listen to Nakimura Keima's story.

 **LH-LH-LH-LH**

"Which of course, is how I found myself in front of the Chief, and now here with you, Aoyama-san," concluded Keima as he steered the car off the expressway and onto a well maintained local road.

Tsuruko eyed the man carefully. If what he said was true, and she had no reason to not believe this was the case, then this was not just a simple matter of possession. She had suspected as much, but Nakimura-san had all but confirmed it. Even possessed people didn't take multiple gunshots to the head and continue moving.

Thinking about Keima's retelling of the encounter, Tsuruko felt somewhat impressed. A normal person, even a seasoned veteran like herself, wouldn't have been able to keep such a cool head when faced with something so inexplicable.

"You seem to be handling this well, Nakimura-san," she said with a purposely disinterested look on her face.

Keima inhaled and then slowly let his breath out.

"This isn't the first time," he said softly.

Tsuruko raised her eyebrow, but no answer was forthcoming and she didn't feel inclined to press. She knew better than most that everyone had their secrets.

"Ah, here we are," stated the man as he navigated the car off the side road and onto a long winding dirt path.

"And where is that?" asked Tsuruko as she peered out the window at the dense foliage.

"The meeting place. We'll wait here for the others to arrive before setting out."

Tsuruko was surprised, this was the first thing she had heard about "others".

" _Who could… oh no, not them."_

"By, 'others', are you perhaps referring to _that organization_ ," Tsuruko asked.

Now it was Keima's turn to be surprised. He didn't know how much the swordswoman knew about the organization, hell he didn't know very much himself and he had all but been drafted into it, but it was obvious that she was wary. It wouldn't do to have her upset or uncooperative, not if his life was going to depend on it.

"I don't know much about them," he stated truthfully, "…but they seem to be the only ones taking this as seriously as they should."

Tsuruko silently clicked her tongue. She had worked with this group before in the past – the government of Japan's own specialized task force for dealing with things that were frankly, unexplainable to the population at large. It was a "spook" unit in the purest sense of the word – when things went bump in the night, _the organization_ bumped back.

As they arrived at their meeting place, a remote cabin halfway up the mountain, Tsuruko couldn't help but feel a bit of pity for Nakimura. The man had obviously already gone through quite an ordeal and it was likely that before the weekend was out he'd be pushed past that. She tried to consider what type of situation could be so dangerous that the government would send not only its own task force, but call upon the _Shinmei-ryū_ as well. All of the scenarios she came up with were decidedly terrible. Luck, it seemed, was never on her side.

Banishing those dark thoughts, she forced herself to smile.

"Well then, shall we go inside and wait?"

"Sorry if the accommodations are a bit poor," called out Keima as he rummaged through cupboards looking for food to eat.

Now that "business" was mostly out of the way, he was keenly feeling the pressure of being alone in a remote cabin with a decidedly beautiful, but quite likely incredibly deadly, woman.

" _Damn is she gorgeous… but the way she carries around that overgrown butterknife like it's a toothpick…"_

Keima wrenched his face. He should know better than to entertain thoughts about Aoyama-san. Despite her perfect looks and graceful demeanour, he knew that she wasn't "normal" – no normal person would be called in to deal with a situation like this. No matter what his hormones wanted, his brain declared that she was "off limits" if he valued his life.

"It's fine," came the musical voice behind him, interrupting his reverie and causing him to painfully bump his head on a shelf.

"I've seen far worse, and at least this place has a bath…" continued Tsuruko as she tried to stifle a chuckle at watching Keima massage his poor abused scalp.

"There's not much else here," Keima said as he moved to the side to gesture to the almost barren pantry.

"Just some canned goods and dried noodles, not even a grain of rice."

Tsuruko walked past him and peered into the recesses of the cupboard. Clapping her hands together she smiled and declared, "This will do! Just give me a few moments."

Keima blinked, not fully comprehending the situation.

"Ah… Aoyama-san, I can handle this…" he started, only to be silenced by Tsuruko placing her finger in front of his mouth. Involuntarily, he blushed and turned his head.

"Men should wait patiently," she said with a smirk on her lips. Keima's blushing face hadn't gone unnoticed by her and she felt somewhat playful as a result.

Before Keima could respond, Tsuruko had skilfully turned him about and gave him a gentle shove from the kitchen. Satisfied that there would be no further protest, she began the cheerful task of turning ancient noodles and mysterious canned goods into a meal.

" _I wonder if he expected that?"_ she thought to herself as she placed the dried noodles to soak in some hot water.

Tsuruko wasn't naïve, she could tell that Nakimura had, at the very least, a favourable impression of her looks. That much was a given, as even Tsuruko would admit she was beautiful. Of course, once you got past that there were a host of problems that otherwise negatively impacted her chance to make a good impression – chief among those being the fact that she carried around a five foot long katana and spoke of demons and spirits as if they existed.

Well, they _did_ exist and the sword was her job, so there was no getting around it. Still, that didn't mean that she wouldn't take the opportunity to play-flirt a little bit with a captive audience. Maybe it was a little bit shallow of her, or maybe it was because she was constantly forced to repress her femininity, but the idea of making the otherwise stoic Nakimura blush uncontrollably made her decidedly cheery.

Was it wrong if she wanted to capitalize on the rare opportunity to have a little fun?

A/N:

People always ask about Tsuruko's husband, so this is my attempted response within the framework of the story I am already working on. I suspect that this is part one of two.

Now back to your regularly scheduled drama…


	12. Chapter 11

As fate would have it, hundreds of miles away and on that very same night, another Urashima was answering several pointed questions over dinner. The situation, while far less confrontational, was still unbearably uncomfortable for Keitaro.

"So, Keitaro-san… when can I expect Grandchildren? Hmm?" asked Tsuruko playfully as she leaned forward, elbows on the table and head in her hands. She probably hadn't intended it, but in the process she had given the normally shy _kanrinin-san_ more than an eyeful of his mother-in-law.

"T-T-Tsuruko-san!" stammered Keitaro as he went three different shades of scarlet. The question alone was enough to send the faint hearted manager into spasms of embarrassment, but Tsuruko wasn't making it easy on him by leaning forward the way she was… he swiftly averted his eyes from the elder swordswoman's exposed cleavage and briefly considered that perhaps Tsuruko was a bit more flirtatious than a married woman should be, particularly towards her daughter's husband.

"That's a little… it's a little…" he tried to explain, only to have his meagre excuses cut off by a lilting laugh.

"Relax… I'm in no hurry and besides, do I look like I'm ready to be a grandmother?" she said with a coy look on her face.

Keitaro rubbed his eyes under his glasses. He was still getting used to how Tsuruko could so easily go from serious to jovial and then back in the blink of an eye. If he didn't know better, he'd almost think that she had some sort of mania. Actually, maybe she did – all things considered, with what Keitaro had heard today, he'd be surprised if Tsuruko _didn't_ have a screw or two loose. Not that he'd ever say that to her of course – he valued his head where it was.

"You're almost as much fun to tease as my husband," she joked as she leaned backwards from the table. Her hand held a simple clay cup that she brought to her mouth. Keitaro watched her take a slow and languid drink as he wondered what could possibly be in it – it certainly wasn't the barely tea that he'd been served.

"Ah, speaking of your husband," Keitaro looked around nervously, "I don't believe I've ever met… um… Aoyama-san?"

Tsuruko sputtered, her drink spraying from the corners of her mouth as a deep and hearty laugh made its way up from her diaphragm, eventually erupting on her lips.

"Keima," she said once she had recovered sufficiently. "His name is Keima, and he's not an Aoyama. You should be smart enough to figure that out _Todaisei-kun_."

Keitaro rolled his eyes. "Don't put too much faith in that… it _did_ take me four times to get in."

After dabbing away the remnants of her drink, Tsuruko responded lightly – "I married into my husband's family. Isn't it obvious that's how Motoko-han…"

Keitaro, his brain actually working for a change, finished the sentence, "… became the heir to the _Shinmei-ryū_."

Tsuruko's face clouded, but only for a moment – the slight grimace that betrayed her inner thoughts was swiftly replaced by her normal sly smile. Keitaro, momentarily overcoming his characteristic denseness, was able to read the mood and changed the subject.

"So where is… Keima-san tonight?" he asked.

"Away on work," Tsuruko responded. "Although… he did want to meet you, so it's unfortunate in a way."

"How so?" asked Keitaro as he moved a helping of black cod to his mouth – dinner was surprisingly good, unexpectedly Tsuruko rivalled or even surpassed Shinobu when it came to cooking. Certainly it was a welcome trait for a married woman, but not one that she had passed down to Motoko.

"Well, he said…" Tsuruko sat up ram-rod straight and squared her jaw, her voice going several octaves lower.

"I want to meet this damn pervert and give him a piece of my mind!"

Keitaro nearly choked on his fish, his chopsticks flying up in the air as he grabbed his own throat.

"S-s-sorry!" he stammered as he wiped his mouth. He was a heartbeat away from going into a complete _dogeza_ and begging forgiveness before a non-present Keima-san before Tsuruko clapped her hands together and brought him back to his senses.

"Don't take it personally – my husband is _very_ conservative and his only knowledge of you is from the letters that Motoko-han would send home from time to time. It's funny, those two are very much alike – maybe that's why they don't get along so well."

Keitaro, still struggling to dislodge an errant piece of cod from his lungs, watched with interest as Tsuruko left her seat and crossed the room towards a table. With a simple movement she opened a drawer and retrieved a stack of letters bundled in red string.

"I've saved every one," she said cheerily as she sauntered back to the table, sitting down and placing the letters before Keitaro.

Finally recovered, Keitaro stared at the pile of paper in front of him. Even if Tsuruko seemed to be egging him on, he wondered if it was _really_ okay for him too look at the letters that Motoko had written to her family. He brought his attention to Tsuruko, who only replied with a silent smile and a raised eyebrow – the implication was clear, _"What are you going to do?"_

Hesitating, but only for a moment, Keitaro slowly slid the letters back across the table.

"Interesting," said Tsuruko as she looked fondly at Keitaro.

"Why did you do that Keitaro-san?"

Keitaro tried to order his thoughts, then swallowed and spoke softly, "I don't think Motoko-chan would like me reading her private letters…"

"Even when those letters are mostly about you?" asked Tsuruko with a grin.

Keitaro's eyes went wide. Those letters… they were about him? His mind raced and recalled the previous year spent at the Hinata – walking in on Motoko in the hotsprings, walking in on Motoko in the toilet, walking in on Motoko in her room, all of course featuring her in various states of nudity or undress. Then of course there was the falling and tripping – landing on Motoko, grabbing Motoko, pulling down her pants from time to time...

Tsuruko found the look of abject terror on Keitaro's face highly amusing. The poor boy had probably just seen his life flash before his eyes and she was tempted to play with him a little bit, but compassion won out over her natural inclination for teasing. After all, regardless of what choice Keitaro made about his future with Motoko, the fact remained that the two would still be married. Not that she needed such a justification to engage in meddling, but certainly it was a valid excuse to continue.

"Oh, it's not all bad…" she said as she picked up the first couple of letters.

"Ahem," she began, "Onee-sama I cannot stress enough how dangerous it has become at the Hinata-sou. The vile lecherous pervert of a _kanrinin_ stalks us constantly, peeping on us in the baths, groping us or otherwise attempting to molest our bodies. He claims they are merely accidents, but I'm not fool – I can tell he's nothing more than a lazy pervert who should be eradicated from the face of the earth!"

Keitaro blanched. Every sentence that Tsuruko uttered was like an arrow flying right to his heart and a reminder of his not-to-distant past with Motoko. After how well the two of them had been getting along, after how much she had out right _flirted_ with him, it was a harsh dose of reality shoved directly in his face.

Feeling somewhat queasy, Keitaro started to launch into one of his patented apology-sprees, only to be silenced when Tsuruko held up a letter in front of his face.

"Let's see… if I remember correctly, it took about fifteen letters for you to go from _hentai-san_ to Urashima-san," she chuckled as she flipped through the pages before her.

"Yes, this is the one that first sparked my interest."

She cleared her throat and continued reading from another letter.

"Today I suffered a humiliating defeat. Once again, for what seems like the hundredth time, that pervert Urashima spied upon me whilst I was changing my clothing."

As Tsuruko read, Keitaro at least had the decency to look ashamed.

"Outraged at his constant intrusions into my privacy and his utter lack of decency, I challenged him on the spot to a duel. In my haste I set out the terms – if I was to win, then Urashima would have to endure special training in our school arts, if I was to lose, then I would do whatever he asked."

Keitaro remembered that exchange vividly. It was less a discussion of terms and more like Motoko barking at him and then rushing him with a sword. If it hadn't been for Su-chan thrusting a baseball bat into his hand (and where did she get that from?) he probably would have been immediately blasted through the roof.

"In retrospect, I should have taken more care. I did not expect to lose, nor did I expect Urashima to execute a perfect _Shinken Shirahadori_ , catching my blade with his bare hands."

That was more of an accident than anything. Keitaro had been trying to parry with the baseball bat, but Motoko's sword shattered it into pieces – in the aftermath, somehow, almost miraculously, Keitaro found himself holding Motoko's sword by the blade.

"With my technique defeated, I threw myself on the ground before Urashima. In my despair I anticipated the worst."

Tsuruko gave Keitaro a leer and a grin as she delivered that last line. Without it being spoken, both of them knew what Motoko meant.

"Without going into details, the worst did not happen. It seems that Urashima has a shred of decency… we were able to come to a resolution. Still, while I must begrudgingly admit that he showed me some small degree of honour that day, he still must reflect upon his actions and correct his behaviour."

What Motoko didn't mention is that Keitaro, at the insistence of Kitsune, had asked Motoko to show her "feminine side". The girls had quite a bit of fun dressing Motoko up, but ultimately she fled in tears and embarrassment from the treatment. The two of them had managed to come to an agreement of sorts, or as Motoko had roughly said – if it was okay for her to be an unfeminine girl, then it was probably okay for Keitaro to be an unmasculine man.

It wasn't particularly flattering to Keitaro, but when faced with Motoko's sword, he'd take whatever he could get.

Tsuruko placed the letter face down on the table and smiled softly.

"Keitaro-san, this letter really surprised me. Do you know why?" she asked.

Keitaro pondered for a moment and then ventured a guess, "Uh… Motoko lost a duel?"

Placing a finger under her chin, Tsuruko seemed to consider his answer, but then shook her head.

"No, it was something else. Let me ask you another question – What does Motoko-han hate?"

This was a far easier question for Keitaro - he answered immediately, "Men and turtles."

"Ignoring turtles for now…" Tsuruko had a wicked gleam in her eye before continuing to speak.

"Motoko-han doesn't really _hate_ men. That's ludicrous – she has many male relatives, even my husband whom she doesn't get along with, she doesn't really _hate_. Her feelings are much more complex than that and actually involve me more than him."

Keitaro tried to follow along, but the confusion on his face was evident. Tsuruko sighed and continued.

"She hates _weak_ men. She hates _lazy_ men. She hates men who are frivolous, who lie, who are cowardly and who act without honour."

"Hey!" Keitaro sputtered, feeling as if Tsuruko's diatribe was directed at him, "I might not be particularly brave… but isn't that a little much?"

Tsuruko waved Keitaro off with her hands; it was obvious she was trying to make a point.

"When I read this letter, I noticed two things immediately – first, rather than attempting to expel you from the Hinata, she merely wanted to train you. Secondly, her loss condition - doing anything you ask? Well, that's either a rather bold offer for Motoko-han, or it demonstrates an unusual amount of trust in your good nature."

Keitaro's mouth hung open. At the time, everything had happened so fast that he hadn't really contemplated the "terms" of that little duel. Hell, he had been surprised that he had even won, but now that Tsuruko brought it out into the open he had to admit that she was on to something – he was just too dense to figure it out.

"I can't quite see what you're getting at…" he said with honest apology in his voice.

Tsuruko rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath, " _Kami_ … Motoko-han wasn't exaggerating, you _are_ dense."

Keitaro sighed. He knew it was true, but he didn't like hearing it all the time.

"Just tell me straight please?" he asked, his voice dripping with resignation.

"It's getting late and you have an early train to catch tomorrow, so I'll just leave you with this thought – Motoko-han is sometimes very rigid in her thinking. She's the kind of girl that can't cope if her heart and her head are at odds."

Tsuruko rose from the table, still talking as she gestured for Keitaro to follow her, "Imagine what kind of restrictions her way of life puts on her Keitaro-san."

What Tsuruko was saying wasn't anything particularly new, or at least not something that Keitaro was unaware of in a general sense. If you thought of the words "strict", "rigid" and "disciplined", the name and face of Aoyama Motoko was quickly conjured into ones mind. In a very real way she was an anachronism in modern day Japan, and not just because she carried a sword. No, to Motoko obligation, duty and honour were not just words; they were a way of life.

"I… I imagine it can't be easy, can it? She must have things that she wants to do, but can't…" Keitaro mused as he followed Tsuruko down the hall.

Tsuruko nodded as the two of them turned a corner, coming to a long hall of doors – obviously living quarters of some kind.

"You can stay in this room," she said with a gesture. "Appropriately enough, it was Motoko-han's."

Keitaro felt a little uncomfortable at the idea of sleeping in Motoko's room, but quickly banished the thought. He reminded himself, somewhat forcefully, that these days, even he _did_ sleep in the same bed with her.

"T-thanks," replied Keitaro.

Tsuruko smiled peacefully and bowed

"Good night Keitaro-san, and think about what we've spoken about today. All of it, even the small parts, are very important."

With that, Tsuruko bade Keitaro good night and retreated down the hall to her own room, leaving the befuddled man to reflect on the events of the day. And what a day it had been – revelation upon revelation had stacked up before him like an insurmountable wall of obstacles that he was sure his less-than-stellar intellect was ill equipped to handle. While he knew he wasn't as dumb as Narusegawa claimed he was, he also knew that he wasn't a genius and from where he was sitting it seemed like genius would be what was required to tackle any one of the myriad problems looming in his near future.

" _Hmm, this room looks very much like her room back at the Hinata."_

Both rooms were spacious, about eight to ten _tatami_ mats in dimension, slightly larger than Keitaro's room in his old home and both equally as sparse with decorations. Motoko evidently had been living a Spartan lifestyle long before she had arrived at the Hinata-sou. In fact, if it wasn't for a few scattered photographs and a bookcase crammed with paperbacks, there'd be no evidence that anyone – let along a young girl had once called this room home.

Keitaro moved to the closet and retrieved a futon, laying it down alongside one of the book shelfs. As he lay down, his eyes wandered across the spines of the books. Many of them were well worn and creased, showing that their owner had read them many times. He idly picked one up at random and started reading the back cover.

" _Huh… I guess she liked romance novels even before she lost her memory."_

He carefully put the book back in its place and considered what Tsuruko had been trying to tell him. Even he wasn't dense enough to not notice that she had been hinting that on some level Motoko had, if not outright liked him, at least accepted certain parts of him. Accepted the fact that he wasn't _really_ a pervert and wouldn't do anything to her if she had lost. In fact, if it hadn't been for Kitsune egging him on to do something "embarrassing", he probably would have let the whole incident pass without comment.

" _But really… she did look cute in that miniskirt."_

He had said so at the time, but it only seemed to further embarrass the kendo-girl. Keitaro had assumed it was because she hated such things, but now after seeing another side of her and after his conversation with Tsuruko, he was wondering if that had really been the case.

" _Maybe she didn't hate them at all, but she didn't feel like she could have them?"_

His eyes wandered across Motoko's collection of novels and he softly chuckled to himself. When he had first caught Motoko reading one in the hospital, it had almost completely destroyed his image of her. At the time, he supposed, he had written it off as a change in her personality due to her memory loss, but now when confronted with a literal bookshelf of evidence to the contrary, he knew that this wasn't the case. In fact, if anything had changed, perhaps it was just that she didn't feel the need to hide her choice in literature from others – likely because it never occurred to her that there was something "wrong" with it.

Was this what Tsuruko was trying to tell him? Is this what he should be reflecting on? Keitaro knew that he had a dizzying array of choices in front of him – the ability (perhaps?) to restore Motoko to her former self being the one at the forefront of his mind, but even so what came after that was equally as important. Regardless of if Motoko could walk again, regardless of if she regained her memories, the fact would still remain that she would be expelled from her family and married to Keitaro. This wasn't something that could be solved with a wave of the hand, or as the case may be, with a "magic pill" given to him by Tsuruko.

Keitaro pulled the blanket of the futon up to his neck and closed his eyes. He noticed, almost absent mindedly, that the room around him had somehow managed to retain a trace of Motoko's scent and despite himself, he found it oddly comforting.

" _There are two paths ahead of me; at least I can clearly see that now. But which one? Which one do I choose, and WHY?"_

Tsuruko had presented him with an amazing opportunity, but it was one that could potentially cause as many problems as it fixed, and even then both outcomes had their own risks and issues that he needed to somehow solve.

First there was the current Motoko who relied on him and trusted him. She was a girl that Keitaro knew he could build a relationship with if he could just banish his remaining doubts, especially his lingering affection for Narusegawa.

Secondly, there was the "old Motoko" – the girl that frequently accused him of harassment and perversion and punished him accordingly. Strangely enough, those were happier memories than the last one he had of her – teetering over the precipice of a cliff, despair and resignation writ large on her face and a hairs breadth from suicide.

He tossed and turned as he reflected on the difficulty of this choice. If he was to restore Motoko, to restore her memories, then would she return to that previous state? Was there anything that he, a simple and foolish man, could do to prevent her despair from tearing her apart? And most importantly, could he save her with just his half-hearted feelings?

" _I… do love her. I love all the girls in their own ways, but am I_ _ **in love**_ _ **with her**_ _?_ "

He laid there for long hours, struggling with these thoughts, but dawn found him only tired and still confused as to what to do.

 **LH-LH-LH-LH**

Motoko, clad in her nightshirt and sitting in her chair, ran a large brush through her hair and stared at herself in the vanity mirror. It was an old piece that Haruka had moved up from storage for no other reason than she thought that a bedroom was incomplete without one and Motoko had found it lovely even if it did strike her as odd that she didn't have one of her own.

Of course, she didn't have a lot of things that she considered a grown woman should have and she often wondered why she had lived such a sparse and Spartan lifestyle.

" _Who am I? What was I like?"_ she thought as she stared at her own reflection, her eyes not betraying a hint of an answer.

It was a question that she had asked herself countless times over the last couple of months and after recent revelations – both Mutsumi's description of her previous relationship with Keitaro, as well as Haruka's assessment of the relationship between him and Narusegawa… she was starting to wonder if she had really wanted to know all that bad.

Maybe, as they say, ignorance was _indeed_ bliss.

The other residents had tried to hide much from her – that was clear now, but it was also something that they had done a poor job of concealing. How could she not know that something was wrong when she would catch them with strange looks on their faces when they interacted with her or when they thought she wasn't watching. It was clear what they were saying, even if it wasn't vocalized – _"Who are you and where did my friend go?"_

She put down the hairbrush and wheeled herself over to the side of the bed she shared with her husband. With a brief struggle she clambered onto the western styled mattress and situated herself for sleep, even though she suspected that such slumber would not come easy tonight.

She remembered what Morita-sensei had asked her – if she wanted to remember her own past, and concluded that even now she couldn't decide.

" _What happens to me, the me that exists now, if I remember the me that came before?"_

She shuddered involuntarily at the thought. In her mind, it seemed almost akin to dying. What if she woke up one morning a completely different person, then what would happen to the feelings that she had now? Would they carry on? Would they change?

Mutsumi had been very descriptive about Motoko's and Keitaro's previous relationship, to the point where several times Motoko had felt ill at how the actions of her past self were so dramatically out of line with her current feelings. It was like being put into an amusement park ride and spun at full tilt until you couldn't tell which way was up or down.

She ran her fingers over her hand, feeling the outline of a simple golden band. Its partner was hundreds of kilometres away, but Motoko couldn't help but wonder if that distance was even further than she imagined. Despite how she felt _now_ , could it all be possible that Keitaro didn't feel the same? What was the distance between their hearts?

" _What if… what if… he still loves her?"_

If this was the case, if Keitaro loved another, then wouldn't it be better if she could stop loving him? Perhaps if she got her memory back, then this would be the inevitable outcome. If the girl she was _before_ returned, then wouldn't it stand to reason that the feelings she had _now_ would change?

Indeed, it would be like death of a sort, but only of her love.

Involuntarily, Motoko let out a sob, a single tear drifting slowly down her cheek.

She knew now that she had the answer to Morita-sensei's question, but unfortunately it had come too late to save her from the pain currently festering in her heart.

"Tomorrow", she whispered to herself as she wiped her eyes, "Tomorrow I'll bare myself to Keitaro-san… Tomorrow we will finally talk as we should have all along."

 **LH-LH-LH-LH-LH**

 **A/N:** Another chapter completed and we're getting one step closer to the turning point of the story. I felt like I really needed to put some questions in this story into a moral context in order to relate to the readers how serious the characters (particularly Keitaro and Motoko) are taking into consideration their different problems.

For Motoko, her problem really hasn't changed from the beginning of the story – she's conflicted primarily over her place in the world and what it means, but it's been complicated by the fact that she believes she's found love and is afraid to lose it – even if it's a false love and of course an overwhelming concern of what it means to lose ones self or personality.

Keitaro on the other hand holds much of Motoko's fate in his hands and is struggling with what is the morally correct thing to do as well as how he wants to deal with their relationship. To him, I imagine the lure of the current Motoko's affections is strong, but he struggles with the feeling that she doesn't really mean it, because the old Motoko clearly didn't. (Well, maybe not so clearly).

These questions I think will start to be resolved in the next couple of chapters, setting a course towards the end of the fiction.

With that in mind, I want to thank everyone who's read and supported this story for so long. I was quite surprised today to see that this story has so many favourites on it and it really means a lot to me since it's actually surpassed the count on several stories that I think are much superior to my own or have served as my own inspiration. Thank you all so much for the votes of confidence!

Cheers,

QC


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